Episode 3 Zach Hoffman

And how have you found AI usage uh to play in with SEO and Google rankings that kind of thing

It’s very innovative from ability to create content uh assist on expanding specific topics if you know how to program specific chats you can build up knowledge bases to really uh expand information pretty rapidly can utilize it for social post pretty effectively, but it’s interesting cause you have to like you have to almost like teach it and prompt it. But it’s you either do that you either teach another human to do it or you take your time you’re like it’s worth like giving GPT another 3 sentences to be like kind of missed it I wanted you to go to this direction cause you want that direction and could say okay cool let me try again

Welcome to Harry Handles it podcast where we dive into the world of personal growth success strategies and everything in between.I’m your host Harry Nalbandyan and today we’re going to chat with an incredible guest who has some amazing insights to share remember no matter what life throws your way I’m here to help you handle it so let’s get started

Welcome to the ZACH Handles it podcast we have Zach Hoffman here with us today who is the founder and CEO of Exults Zach good afternoon how you doing

Doing awesome Harry how about yourself

Pretty good pretty good thanks for being on today

Yeah thanks for having me. How’s your day going?

Pretty good so far, pretty good. Excited to talk to you about digital marketing. Can you tell us our listeners a little bit about your background?

Yeah so I have a background in you know essentially now digital marketing. I’ve been doing it for 18+ years, uh studied finance and economics graduating 05 so there wasn’t really like a defined area of digital marketing it was still when we’re all on MySpace and Facebook you needed a dot edu college email to get on uh so you know so it started way back then so I’ve been at the game for a while and seen a lot of evolution to the space and there’s one thing for sure it’s not gonna keep changing it’s well it’s gonna keep changing that’s why you’re saying it.

I got I definitely got what you meant so I mean you’ve been in the digital marketing game it seems like since the beginning since it started yeah. Can you tell us the different ways it’s evolved since then?

Well it’s uh it’s continued to evolve I mean yeah the bandwidth has allowed for like more I would say awesome video to come to life that wasn’t there before I say Google is still the OG and continues to like dominate the space in a lot of ways uh and then you have Instagram which basically say Facebook and you have a lot of things that have like come and gone throughout the the journey it’s interesting cause I just made a Powerpoint for career day at my kids school so I was like I was like am I a digital marker or am I an entrepreneur like a little bit of both right like just like you’re an attorney and you’re an entrepreneur as well right

That’s right that’s right it’s not just one hat.

Exactly now now we have AI coming into the game so if you’re in tech and you’re gonna survive you know and you survive and thrive AI is definitely I would say that’s that’s the next big thing but there’s so many so many nodes to AI as to where it’s gonna go.

Let’s talk about that in what what context is AI come up in a digital marketing world or marketing world well.

So I would call myself more of like a digital agency guy so I’ve done a lot of I am of the 80s so I’m like Zach Zach the Lego Maniac I uh love to just like build things uh so when we started messing with AI uh we actually dove into the legal space because we saw what a mediation document might look like or a medical record and I don’t know how you guys read those but somebody does right.

yes hey

But i GPT and some yes specific model is that have a your data attention can really do an effective job and reading like would take hours and really take minutes. A pretty effective tool on the back OpenAI but uh ha I would say that it’s like AI a lot of people are asking it to do a lot of things and it’s a it’s a long journey as to like everything that it can cover.

That’s a good point but I mean in terms of just you know outside of the medical record scheme and building uh mediation briefs and things like that with AI is there a specific AI tool that you’ve used in the digital marketing world that you found useful for your clients

Oh I mean definitely when it comes to on the digital marketing side and just AI when you’re not looking to have to utilize like zero data or attention and some things that you know you as an attorney to like me bar standards like you have to keep confidentiality so if you can take any data and information and utilize AI to essentially um just have fun with it uh there’s a lot of cool ways to develop campaigns uh ask AI for you opinions or even for mockups or just to like just without having to take hours of a human to like give you a view of what you might wanna see you could ask AI for it and it will give it to you in minutes

Yeah it’s a good sign, it’s pretty fast, it’s wild. I’ve used the, I’ve used AI image generation and you used it in Powerpoints during trial and it’s incredible the stuff that we can do with that technology now oh

and Sora was just released by uh by open AI so I I recommend you go out and check that out that’s where you can produce videos and additional content well

thanks for that yep

for sure

So what motivated you to to start exultus what unique vision did you have when you started.

So when I started exults essentially I didn’t necessarily start as exults essentially I’ve rebranded along the journey uh so when I got into the game I was search engine operator .com because I was like kind of going all the way if you know if you had to call the you know operator to get onto the search engine may as well do that and then I was dominating so I got SEO.CC uh it’s cause one of my good buddies goes well how would you spell search engine operator and I’m like it’s not that difficult but it brings up a good point so I bought SEO.CC and then that became my brand uh and then from there I took SEO.CC I wasn’t really selling a lot of SEO and you know there’s like I was selling a lot more services because all of our clients were like you’re really great at this my web designer doesn’t pick up the phone or this one doesn’t respond in a timely fashion so can you handle my web design can you do my paid ads can you do my social media so kind of built up from there and you know as Dave Chappelle said like just because you look like something doesn’t mean you are something right so it’s like I was like hey I was like we’re not purely SEO but surely when people see the brand name they’re like associating that’s what we specialize in so we evolved I was sitting in a meeting and this lady was like I need excellent results expedited results and I need them like tomorrow and like yeah the the light bulb just went off in my head I wrote down exults I found it was a natural word was able to buy it in the aftermarket it means to rejoice at you know as a result of a success uh so Exult stands for driving excellent results and uh as a marketer myself just continue to evolve and build the brand up

How big is your team now do you have a specific specialty for the agency?

Yeah, so we’ve been getting a lot more into legal marketing and assisting law firms and developing leads that turn into clients and cases uh but also essentially our team is 30+ right now um but with AI coming to the picture over the past year um it’s been augmenting a lot of you know just abilities on the team so it’s been pretty awesome

and how have you found AI usage uh to play in with SEO and Google rankings that kind of thing uh.

It’s very uh it’s very innovative from ability to create content uh assist on expanding specific topics if you know how to program specific chats you can build up knowledge bases to really uh expand information pretty rapidly can utilize it for social post pretty effectively you can utilize it for mockups like I was saying to like see a design idea if you’re like hey take this website make it a little bit more modern or yo give me a little bit of a different spin on it uh even I’m working on another campaign I was asking it for like script ideas uh but it’s interesting cause you have to like you have to almost like teach it and prompt it but it’s you either do that you either teach another human to do it or you take your time you’re like it’s worth like giving GPT another 3 sentences to be like kind of missed it I wanted you to go to this direction cause you want that direction and could say okay cool let me try again get your response

that’s wild um can you talk to us a little bit about team building and leadership and marketing and how that’s intertwined

Yes, um team building leadership and what was the last sorry.

In marketing and how how that plays together,.

oh yeah so team building leadership.  I mean it’s uh you know it’s a it’s a heavy topic in a lot of ways definitely um yo pre covid I had a full you know full office of people like just you know right right in the immediate in my immediate vicinity uh and that kind of evolved everything I would say in a lot of ways uh but essentially yo managing a team I think investing in people long term is really critical and and you know maintaining people for a long time definitely assists in creating a yo culture and a strong company and strong foundation uh so we invest a lot in our people and our team and you know continue to maintain a lot of those relationships I mean those are critical too I say building an effective company as well as an effective team

yeah 100% I definitely agree with you there that’s kind of the hardest part about leadership is for me at least developing the team and the different stages of leadership that are for the team yeah that’s a big learning process that that I never understood or went through coming up

Well, it’s you know there’s a portion of you that has to be a giver in order to build effectively everybody thinks I think uh that uh owners or founders are like that there’s they’re in it for a certain reason it’s like the amount that I mean you’re you’re an entrepreneur yourself right absolutely so the amount that you give to your team like energy wise time wise financially I mean it goes you know they get they get paid first usually so right absolutely cause you’ll still show up what’s that.

Yeah, I mean you still have to show up

Exactly as the owner exactly you’ll still show up so you know you definitely make sure they get paid first so there’s a you know there’s a lot when it comes to ownership that I think you know people watching they definitely think it’s a little bit more smoother than it is

So, big time, what trends do you see now in digital marketing that uh are are hot topics or hot strategies that you’ve seen work for your clients?

um so, just hot topics hot strategies it definitely look social media is becoming a bigger and bigger picture bigger and bigger play uh, utilizing like videos live videos as well as like podcast and different ways to get like rich media uh to really connect with an audience versus like static photos and image and content I think it’s becoming very very effective in a lot of ways uh but it the it’s just so just digital in general um there’s I guess being in the art in the game for a long time like there’s a few funnels I know like drive results like now and today and like if I was to like shut some things off like I would never recommend anybody shuts off their like Google ads or they’re like meta remarketing um but when it comes to like creating fresh content or organic content like those are things you could slow down may not get as noticed as much in the bottom line or like you know when you’re producing revenue uh but trend wise definitely it’s um look it’s just not it’s not a one funnel game it’s not just you can’t just dominate one funnel and expect you know amazing results you almost have to be everywhere because a lot of consumers are on Facebook Instagram TikTok X YouTube Google Bing open AI chat GBT searching so but I’d say majority are still on Google and a lot of people are on Facebook and Instagram and then there’s the rest of the pack so

and that’s funny because I’ve always seen marketing to be that way it’s a multi disciplinary front and a multi strategy yeah it’s not like it was before where you could just hang up your own shingle buy a few leads and you’ll do okay I feel like the the way that people consume information the way that people are attracted to marketing is totally different than it was you know back in the day where you could just buy a couple leads and that was your marketing

oh for sure I mean I even spoke to somebody earlier today where it was uh you say oh the website hasn’t really generate might be much but I get a lot of referrals and they say they saw my website I’m like well if your website didn’t effectively communicate and connect with them or your social media didn’t communicate and connect with them that referral may have never called you right so yeah that that website being an effective cornerstone of your digital presence actually got you that new client because they then converted so yeah there’s a there’s there’s a lot of aspects of digital marketing and I I I believe that you’re you’re a big investor in digital marketing yourself correct yeah

that’s a that’s where more most of our marketing efforts go

yeah so what mediums do you find most effective

PPC LSA SEO I mean all all of the above client referrals the traditional type of marketing for our own clients that pays pretty well in terms of dividends nice we haven’t touched the traditional front yet radio billboards but you know talking about the multi disciplinary multi front marketing I think that’s just one of the strategies that you can employ oh

for sure yeah I mean LSA’s personally I think they’re a little finicky at times you know that’s I would some people have tried to build practices off them and then they freak out LSA’s don’t work Levi I told you so um definitely yeah there’s certain aspects um of like what what I what I’m starting to tell out of you know just like consumers that we speak to which are B2B or like clients or you know firms themselves it’s like look when you’re producing a TV spot produce a TV spot for Instagram and Facebook and like for YouTube like take that same dollars and attitude like if I was gonna air this on NBC or Fox or ABC like spend those same resources 25 50 k whatever it’s gonna be on like a 30 second spot and produce it as though you’re gonna run it on those major mediums but just run it on Facebook and IG where you currently are I don’t under invest in the assets that you’re gonna be playing online because I would say like look uh the traditional media is just jealous of what digital is actually doing and the gates have come down on content distribution that’s for sure

yeah it’s growing up this kind of a platform and having this kind of a medium uh was nothing that anybody I think imagined to be able to start your own podcast bring people on distribute the content so easily how has that shaped how you advise your law firm clients for their social media strategy game

oh for sure I mean look I’ve had the benefit of marketing for some of the biggest advertisers doing Lee Jen on a national basis uh so there there’s very few people in those packs that actually do that and then when you see it’s just I so I’m like a student of the trade I’m I’m born in 81 so I consume how about yourself like about how old like ball park 90

not so not too far apart

what’s that yeah so it’s like but there’s there’s formative things we all saw growing up right like we saw OJ and a Bronco and we’re watching the NBA Finals like you couldn’t turn it off and it was during the holidays like you saw like certain things on TV that like TV was like feeding you like you couldn’t escape that trial right like you if you turned on N B C for like a few years you were watching the Simpsons trial right or like you see like certain events in our life that like if you turned on the television like you were watching that even you know just like I and there’s so many events in our life like that like just I guess media controlled the consumption like you couldn’t change the station essentially like whatever they wanted you to see is essentially what you saw um so where we go forward now today is like a saying it’s like those old mediums are still a lot to be Learned like the ability to you know I would say amplify specific messaging or to treat the medium as though you’re only gonna get 15 seconds or 30 seconds of a consumer’s time that it’s really important that you treat that time effectively and that you get the message across and that like when you’re looking at at like creating a piece that you should have like a cornerstone or a milestone like messaging piece that gets across your message effectively um I mean look in injury law specifically like you have Morgan and Morgan throughout the country you know it’s like a lot of their messaging of like how they kind of communicate one message across the country yeah where size does matter or like you know that’s totally ripping off Viagra campaign or like yeah old campaigns that we saw of little blue pills but it’s like you know it’s like taking like great notes like Yo great advertising for Mogul V is like in short snippets of three to five words you know of like that’s like yo some of the messaging in the 80s 90s is like it’s gotta be concise um and then even before that though like language used to be an art like there’s like an old article or use case of like how L’oreal was built on Michael a love letter of like why women wore lipstick and like why it was like a thing to like leave your Mark so there’s a lot of like cool things in marketing that you can read about of like how they’ve kind of like told stories over time and like storytelling is not something that is ever going to go out of out of style essentially um storytelling is very important so every brand has to have like a story or a concise and quick message to you know I I think really you know understand yeah understand where somebody’s gonna get it

in this world of you know 30 second reels 15 second reels how would a law firm position themselves to be able to get a message across or does it depend on what strategy you’re running you can say that this one marketing campaign is marketing to give our consumers this message or do you do you want the message to be the same every time

I you know there’s there is a art to jingles um but like you know if Harry Handles it or Harry’s gonna handle it or there’s like a lot of ways to almost like you know kind of like drum in that line to almost like every piece of messaging or every collateral that you put out there uh there’s a lot of ways to I think like just create a story loop you know or like create consistency even if you’re going out there and creating a lot of messaging the beauty of I would say all these distribution channels and networks is like you could put out 50 to 100 pieces of content and then you could be like well these five pieces of content people actually like they they actually connected with it like they actually like liked it or they looked at it or the algorithm shot it up because it was like it was something that was relevant to a lot of people um so then you build on that piece of content so that should be your like roadmap for essentially what you saw it it’s it’s a scientific experiment it like you can take that road map and just keep yeah utilizing that and then when you wanna throw something fresh out there you can throw another thing out there see how people react and just keep building

what role does do you and your team play in that process

so we gather a lot of data I mean there’s we see what converts there’s a lot of information that we put out there we assist clients and helping them craft specific messages or even you know directing them of where they have to go um and sometimes the truth hurts and you gotta be able to yeah tell people like hey this is broken or you have to fix it or you’re yeah your dialogue and communication is isn’t as concise as it could or should be um so really providing those guidelines in the road map to get people to the next level

and have you had any marketing strategies that were unconventional that yielded some asymmetrical results for some of your clients yeah

I mean definitely I would say the I would say when somebody’s wanting to put themselves out there and go a little bit more like outside the beaten path and like yo test something or

or we’ll fight for you yeah

or produce a jingle or like really yo put resources and time into really coming up with like a pretty badass idea like even yo one of our clients is doing a commercial shoot and they’re gonna film uh the company told him they’re filming like seven commercials in like three hours I’m like that’s a big undertaking I’m like good luck filming I’m like you’re up for Hollywood if you’re filming seven 30 second commercials in two and a half hours I mean you gotta give yourself like reasonable time and reality to like really produce great pieces um and not everything happens in one cut or one reel typically especially when you’re trying to bring great content to life like there’s a lot of businesses and concepts that are built off like a really like home run 30 seconds 60 second piece um it’s like if you think about it and you watch the Super Bowl

yes yeah

so how many three million dollar spots are you really ever gonna buy right so you know when you’re watching those spots like you gotta think like there’s a for every three million they spend on that one run they probably spent like five to 10 $20 million on the actual creative and they spent a lot of money they might have spent two years producing that 30 seconds and if you think of some of the most effective campaigns um or brands out there like they’re tear jerker campaign some of them like like Google like there’s numerous campaigns they’ve run during the Super Bowl that have made me cry um Nike there’s campaigns that they’ve run where it yo emotionally connects with you and will make you cry um so it yo depends on the brands and what they’re trying to do but those masterful pieces that you see that are done there’s there’s a lot to be said to like really creating I think like home run content that can that can ride for a while

does your team help with creating that content or do you put law firms in touch with different teams who can create that kind of creative content for that strategy

a combination of factors definitely you know there’s a number of people that you know there’s a number of associates and contacts that we have as well as like as well I like to like be a piece of some of that stuff because I I just think it’s fun it’s an it’s an actual art like it’s not you can’t really you know delegate artistry or just like yeah effective communication at times um but you know if there’s there’s like a few spots that like you can watch or see um in media that like when you show them to people if you you get the the concepts like where it’s like they’re home run pieces that really like I said they emotionally connect with you know the the humanity of a lot of people and it’s just yeah there’s great there’s great art in marketing communication

yeah I feel like the best marketing pieces are the ones that are artistic that do capture your attention that do leave an imprint uh because how many Bill I don’t know you’re I mean you’re in Florida so you see a lot of billboards yeah how many billboards do you see with two guys on the billboard with you know dollar signs in the back that’s not very memorable

I mean you know it’s it does have its impact I mean look there’s um there’s a there’s a lot of that in the country there’s a lot of the yo campaigns have been built up over time where where they they have those you know challenge with with legal marketing or just marketing in general is that point of interest when somebody actually is like ready to buy or like in your instance where somebody gets into an injury and essentially they go boom and then all the adrenaline kicks they forgot everything they’ve ever seen and you have to be that next 30 or 60 seconds they saw or your campaign has to be that effective or your phone number has to be that great that they like remember and they’re like oh I’m gonna call you know that number cause they know it off the top of their head um because it’s just that effectively communicated or they just recalled it uh when it comes to billboards it’s a challenging medium but it’s also you know there’s there’s a lot of cities in this country where you’ll see yeah a lot of a lot of communications and yeah things have to like stand out or or just kind of like pop in your memory to to have a long term impact

Yeah well Zach thank you you know we’ve been going for a while now uh there’s a great conversation today a lot more to learn about for sure digital marketing and traditional marketing uh tell our viewers how they can find you for sure

you can find me at exults.com um as well you know just if you you know wanna reach out uh you can find me on the internet Zach Hoffman just you know just give me a search but yeah definitely appreciate the time Harry

thank you so much Zach thank you appreciate it for sure thanks

thanks for joining us today on ZACH Handles it I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found some valuable takeaways if you’re facing challenges in your own life or business remember that you’re not alone together we can handle anything that comes our way don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you like what you heard until next time keep pushing forward and handling life with confidence API Assistance area