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  • An Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership

    An Holistic Framework for Shared Design Leadership

    Picture this: You’re in a meeting room at your tech company, and two people are having what looks like the same conversation about the same design problem. One is talking about whether the team has the right skills to tackle it. The other is diving deep into whether the solution actually solves the user’s problem. Same room, same problem, completely different lenses.

    This is the beautiful, sometimes messy reality of having both a Design Manager and a Lead Designer on the same team. And if you’re wondering how to make this work without creating confusion, overlap, or the dreaded “too many cooks” scenario, you’re asking the right question.

    The traditional answer has been to draw clean lines on an org chart. The Design Manager handles people, the Lead Designer handles craft. Problem solved, right? Except clean org charts are fantasy. In reality, both roles care deeply about team health, design quality, and shipping great work. 

    The magic happens when you embrace the overlap instead of fighting it—when you start thinking of your design org as a design organism.

    The Anatomy of a Healthy Design Team

    Here’s what I’ve learned from years of being on both sides of this equation: think of your design team as a living organism. The Design Manager tends to the mind (the psychological safety, the career growth, the team dynamics). The Lead Designer tends to the body (the craft skills, the design standards, the hands-on work that ships to users).

    But just like mind and body aren’t completely separate systems, so, too, do these roles overlap in important ways. You can’t have a healthy person without both working in harmony. The trick is knowing where those overlaps are and how to navigate them gracefully.

    When we look at how healthy teams actually function, three critical systems emerge. Each requires both roles to work together, but with one taking primary responsibility for keeping that system strong.

    The Nervous System: People & Psychology

    Primary caretaker: Design Manager
    Supporting role: Lead Designer

    The nervous system is all about signals, feedback, and psychological safety. When this system is healthy, information flows freely, people feel safe to take risks, and the team can adapt quickly to new challenges.

    The Design Manager is the primary caretaker here. They’re monitoring the team’s psychological pulse, ensuring feedback loops are healthy, and creating the conditions for people to grow. They’re hosting career conversations, managing workload, and making sure no one burns out.

    But the Lead Designer plays a crucial supporting role. They’re providing sensory input about craft development needs, spotting when someone’s design skills are stagnating, and helping identify growth opportunities that the Design Manager might miss.

    Design Manager tends to:

    • Career conversations and growth planning
    • Team psychological safety and dynamics
    • Workload management and resource allocation
    • Performance reviews and feedback systems
    • Creating learning opportunities

    Lead Designer supports by:

    • Providing craft-specific feedback on team member development
    • Identifying design skill gaps and growth opportunities
    • Offering design mentorship and guidance
    • Signaling when team members are ready for more complex challenges

    The Muscular System: Craft & Execution

    Primary caretaker: Lead Designer
    Supporting role: Design Manager

    The muscular system is about strength, coordination, and skill development. When this system is healthy, the team can execute complex design work with precision, maintain consistent quality, and adapt their craft to new challenges.

    The Lead Designer is the primary caretaker here. They’re setting design standards, providing craft coaching, and ensuring that shipping work meets the quality bar. They’re the ones who can tell you if a design decision is sound or if we’re solving the right problem.

    But the Design Manager plays a crucial supporting role. They’re ensuring the team has the resources and support to do their best craft work, like proper nutrition and recovery time for an athlete.

    Lead Designer tends to:

    • Definition of design standards and system usage
    • Feedback on what design work meets the standard
    • Experience direction for the product
    • Design decisions and product-wide alignment
    • Innovation and craft advancement

    Design Manager supports by:

    • Ensuring design standards are understood and adopted across the team
    • Confirming experience direction is being followed
    • Supporting practices and systems that scale without bottlenecking
    • Facilitating design alignment across teams
    • Providing resources and removing obstacles to great craft work

    The Circulatory System: Strategy & Flow

    Shared caretakers: Both Design Manager and Lead Designer

    The circulatory system is about how information, decisions, and energy flow through the team. When this system is healthy, strategic direction is clear, priorities are aligned, and the team can respond quickly to new opportunities or challenges.

    This is where true partnership happens. Both roles are responsible for keeping the circulation strong, but they’re bringing different perspectives to the table.

    Lead Designer contributes:

    • User needs are met by the product
    • Overall product quality and experience
    • Strategic design initiatives
    • Research-based user needs for each initiative

    Design Manager contributes:

    • Communication to team and stakeholders
    • Stakeholder management and alignment
    • Cross-functional team accountability
    • Strategic business initiatives

    Both collaborate on:

    • Co-creation of strategy with leadership
    • Team goals and prioritization approach
    • Organizational structure decisions
    • Success measures and frameworks

    Keeping the Organism Healthy

    The key to making this partnership sing is understanding that all three systems need to work together. A team with great craft skills but poor psychological safety will burn out. A team with great culture but weak craft execution will ship mediocre work. A team with both but poor strategic circulation will work hard on the wrong things.

    Be Explicit About Which System You’re Tending

    When you’re in a meeting about a design problem, it helps to acknowledge which system you’re primarily focused on. “I’m thinking about this from a team capacity perspective” (nervous system) or “I’m looking at this through the lens of user needs” (muscular system) gives everyone context for your input.

    This isn’t about staying in your lane. It’s about being transparent as to which lens you’re using, so the other person knows how to best add their perspective.

    Create Healthy Feedback Loops

    The most successful partnerships I’ve seen establish clear feedback loops between the systems:

    Nervous system signals to muscular system: “The team is struggling with confidence in their design skills” → Lead Designer provides more craft coaching and clearer standards.

    Muscular system signals to nervous system: “The team’s craft skills are advancing faster than their project complexity” → Design Manager finds more challenging growth opportunities.

    Both systems signal to circulatory system: “We’re seeing patterns in team health and craft development that suggest we need to adjust our strategic priorities.”

    Handle Handoffs Gracefully

    The most critical moments in this partnership are when something moves from one system to another. This might be when a design standard (muscular system) needs to be rolled out across the team (nervous system), or when a strategic initiative (circulatory system) needs specific craft execution (muscular system).

    Make these transitions explicit. “I’ve defined the new component standards. Can you help me think through how to get the team up to speed?” or “We’ve agreed on this strategic direction. I’m going to focus on the specific user experience approach from here.”

    Stay Curious, Not Territorial

    The Design Manager who never thinks about craft, or the Lead Designer who never considers team dynamics, is like a doctor who only looks at one body system. Great design leadership requires both people to care about the whole organism, even when they’re not the primary caretaker.

    This means asking questions rather than making assumptions. “What do you think about the team’s craft development in this area?” or “How do you see this impacting team morale and workload?” keeps both perspectives active in every decision.

    When the Organism Gets Sick

    Even with clear roles, this partnership can go sideways. Here are the most common failure modes I’ve seen:

    System Isolation

    The Design Manager focuses only on the nervous system and ignores craft development. The Lead Designer focuses only on the muscular system and ignores team dynamics. Both people retreat to their comfort zones and stop collaborating.

    The symptoms: Team members get mixed messages, work quality suffers, morale drops.

    The treatment: Reconnect around shared outcomes. What are you both trying to achieve? Usually it’s great design work that ships on time from a healthy team. Figure out how both systems serve that goal.

    Poor Circulation

    Strategic direction is unclear, priorities keep shifting, and neither role is taking responsibility for keeping information flowing.

    The symptoms: Team members are confused about priorities, work gets duplicated or dropped, deadlines are missed.

    The treatment: Explicitly assign responsibility for circulation. Who’s communicating what to whom? How often? What’s the feedback loop?

    Autoimmune Response

    One person feels threatened by the other’s expertise. The Design Manager thinks the Lead Designer is undermining their authority. The Lead Designer thinks the Design Manager doesn’t understand craft.

    The symptoms: Defensive behavior, territorial disputes, team members caught in the middle.

    The treatment: Remember that you’re both caretakers of the same organism. When one system fails, the whole team suffers. When both systems are healthy, the team thrives.

    The Payoff

    Yes, this model requires more communication. Yes, it requires both people to be secure enough to share responsibility for team health. But the payoff is worth it: better decisions, stronger teams, and design work that’s both excellent and sustainable.

    When both roles are healthy and working well together, you get the best of both worlds: deep craft expertise and strong people leadership. When one person is out sick, on vacation, or overwhelmed, the other can help maintain the team’s health. When a decision requires both the people perspective and the craft perspective, you’ve got both right there in the room.

    Most importantly, the framework scales. As your team grows, you can apply the same system thinking to new challenges. Need to launch a design system? Lead Designer tends to the muscular system (standards and implementation), Design Manager tends to the nervous system (team adoption and change management), and both tend to circulation (communication and stakeholder alignment).

    The Bottom Line

    The relationship between a Design Manager and Lead Designer isn’t about dividing territories. It’s about multiplying impact. When both roles understand they’re tending to different aspects of the same healthy organism, magic happens.

    The mind and body work together. The team gets both the strategic thinking and the craft excellence they need. And most importantly, the work that ships to users benefits from both perspectives.

    So the next time you’re in that meeting room, wondering why two people are talking about the same problem from different angles, remember: you’re watching shared leadership in action. And if it’s working well, both the mind and body of your design team are getting stronger.

  • From Beta to Bedrock: Build Products that Stick.

    From Beta to Bedrock: Build Products that Stick.

    As a product builder over too many years to mention, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen promising ideas go from zero to hero in a few weeks, only to fizzle out within months.

    Financial products, which is the field I work in, are no exception. With people’s real hard-earned money on the line, user expectations running high, and a crowded market, it’s tempting to throw as many features at the wall as possible and hope something sticks. But this approach is a recipe for disaster. Here’s why:

    The pitfalls of feature-first development

    When you start building a financial product from the ground up, or are migrating existing customer journeys from paper or telephony channels onto online banking or mobile apps, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of creating new features. You might think, “If I can just add one more thing that solves this particular user problem, they’ll love me!” But what happens when you inevitably hit a roadblock because the narcs (your security team!) don’t like it? When a hard-fought feature isn’t as popular as you thought, or it breaks due to unforeseen complexity?

    This is where the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) comes in. Jason Fried’s book Getting Real and his podcast Rework often touch on this idea, even if he doesn’t always call it that. An MVP is a product that provides just enough value to your users to keep them engaged, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or difficult to maintain. It sounds like an easy concept but it requires a razor sharp eye, a ruthless edge and having the courage to stick by your opinion because it is easy to be seduced by “the Columbo Effect”… when there’s always “just one more thing…” that someone wants to add.

    The problem with most finance apps, however, is that they often become a reflection of the internal politics of the business rather than an experience solely designed around the customer. This means that the focus is on delivering as many features and functionalities as possible to satisfy the needs and desires of competing internal departments, rather than providing a clear value proposition that is focused on what the people out there in the real world want. As a result, these products can very easily bloat to become a mixed bag of confusing, unrelated and ultimately unlovable customer experiences—a feature salad, you might say.

    The importance of bedrock

    So what’s a better approach? How can we build products that are stable, user-friendly, and—most importantly—stick?

    That’s where the concept of “bedrock” comes in. Bedrock is the core element of your product that truly matters to users. It’s the fundamental building block that provides value and stays relevant over time.

    In the world of retail banking, which is where I work, the bedrock has got to be in and around the regular servicing journeys. People open their current account once in a blue moon but they look at it every day. They sign up for a credit card every year or two, but they check their balance and pay their bill at least once a month.

    Identifying the core tasks that people want to do and then relentlessly striving to make them easy to do, dependable, and trustworthy is where the gravy’s at.

    But how do you get to bedrock? By focusing on the “MVP” approach, prioritizing simplicity, and iterating towards a clear value proposition. This means cutting out unnecessary features and focusing on delivering real value to your users.

    It also means having some guts, because your colleagues might not always instantly share your vision to start with. And controversially, sometimes it can even mean making it clear to customers that you’re not going to come to their house and make their dinner. The occasional “opinionated user interface design” (i.e. clunky workaround for edge cases) might sometimes be what you need to use to test a concept or buy you space to work on something more important.

    Practical strategies for building financial products that stick

    So what are the key strategies I’ve learned from my own experience and research?

    1. Start with a clear “why”: What problem are you trying to solve? For whom? Make sure your mission is crystal clear before building anything. Make sure it aligns with your company’s objectives, too.
    2. Focus on a single, core feature and obsess on getting that right before moving on to something else: Resist the temptation to add too many features at once. Instead, choose one that delivers real value and iterate from there.
    3. Prioritize simplicity over complexity: Less is often more when it comes to financial products. Cut out unnecessary bells and whistles and keep the focus on what matters most.
    4. Embrace continuous iteration: Bedrock isn’t a fixed destination—it’s a dynamic process. Continuously gather user feedback, refine your product, and iterate towards that bedrock state.
    5. Stop, look and listen: Don’t just test your product as part of your delivery process—test it repeatedly in the field. Use it yourself. Run A/B tests. Gather user feedback. Talk to people who use it, and refine accordingly.

    The bedrock paradox

    There’s an interesting paradox at play here: building towards bedrock means sacrificing some short-term growth potential in favour of long-term stability. But the payoff is worth it—products built with a focus on bedrock will outlast and outperform their competitors, and deliver sustained value to users over time.

    So, how do you start your journey towards bedrock? Take it one step at a time. Start by identifying those core elements that truly matter to your users. Focus on building and refining a single, powerful feature that delivers real value. And above all, test obsessively—for, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, Alan Kay, or Peter Drucker (whomever you believe!!), “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

  • Good designers, bad websites: a proposal

    Good designers, bad websites: a proposal

    I want to discuss accessibility because it is the most important thing for making websites. Other A List Apart articles give you innovation and insight. This article will give you homework. These are just my personal views, but they’re pretty good.

    I want to start off with a couple of statements, and you will agree:

    1. Designers are good people. I have never heard a designer say, “I don’t care if somebody can’t read this text”, “Not my fault if somebody can’t use this device”, or “Who cares if this is confusing?”
    2. Some designs exclude people. You have seen people unable to read the text on a website or app that somebody designed. You’ve seen people unable to use a physical device that somebody has designed. You’ve seen people utterly bamboozled while trying to use a service that somebody designed.

    So what?

    The first question is, “Is this life-or-death stuff?” The answer is, “Yes.” In my favorite essay, This Is All There Is, Aral Balkan makes the point that pretty much everything that we design can affect life events and death events. Aral gives the example of how even a straightforward bus timetable app can affect life and death events, if we design it badly:

    • somebody might miss a life event, such as their daughter’s fifth birthday party; or
    • somebody might miss a death event, such as the chance to say goodbye to a dying grandmother.

    The next—and frustrating—question is, “Why do some designs still exclude people?” After all, we know that:

    • not everybody can see perfectly;
    • not everybody can hear perfectly;
    • not everybody thinks the same way; and
    • not everybody moves the same way.

    I think the answer is that there’s too much to recall. Consider, if you will, the wide variety of topics that A List Apart articles cover. Designers are expected to remember all of that guidance, plus all of the accessibility guidance, plus so much more. It is too much.

    Recognizing accessibility issues while designing

    I’d like to point toward one possible solution, starting from Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. These are from the mid-1990s, and—although there’s a good chance that you, gentle reader, are a lot younger than that—please bear with me. 

    Seeing as the problem is that there’s too much to recall, I want to look at heuristic № 6, “Recognition rather than Recall.” Jakob Nielsen said that for users, information required to use the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. I suggest we tweak that to make life easier for designers. Let’s say that the information required to produce the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. In other words, let’s make it easier to recognise accessibility issues while we’re designing.

    How are we going to do that? I really like the book A Web for Everyone—Designing Accessible User Experiences by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery. I really like this book not only because it includes a quote from me—actually two quotes, but I don’t like to boast—but because it includes personas that are perfect for helping us to recognise accessibility issues. That’s the good news. The even better news is that these personas are available now for free on the companion website to the book What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility, again by Sarah Horton, with David Sloan this time.

    Meet your users

    I’m going to introduce you to these personas now:

    I want to throw one more persona at you now, because, well, A List Apart readers are overachievers. One of my favorite authors, Cennydd Bowles—who literally wrote the book on Future Ethics—says to create Personas Non Grata. In other words, every time we design something, we have to think about what a bad guy could do with that thing, and whom that might affect.

    To actually use these personas while designing, I like what Eric Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher in Design for Real Life call the Designated Dissenter: for each project that you work on, one of your teams should be responsible for asking, “Will this work for Vishnu?”, “How’s Trevor going to get on with this?”, and so on. 

    Then, once you’ve used the personas to recognise the accessibility issues, you can look up the guidelines for whichever platforms you’re designing for: 

    Your mission, should you choose to accept it

    I told you in the introduction of this article that I would give you homework. You thought I was joking. So, here’s your homework: I want you to grab the personas from the Know About Accessibility website, and use them throughout every design project to help you recognise accessibility issues while you work—and reclaim design for everyone.


    NOTE: This article is based on “Recognise,” my five-minute presentation from Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Dublin’s Defuse (Design for Use) event in 2025.

  • 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 3

    7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 3

    7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 3 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode Overview For 20 years, small business marketing came down to one question: can Google find you? That still matters. It is no longer the whole answer. Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude very specific questions, get a short list of names back, and trust what they read. If your business […]

    7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 3 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode

    john jantschOverview

    For 20 years, small business marketing came down to one question: can Google find you? That still matters. It is no longer the whole answer. Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude very specific questions, get a short list of names back, and trust what they read. If your business is not on that list, you are invisible at the exact moment someone is ready to buy.

    In this solo episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast (Step 3 of the Seven Steps of Small Business Marketing Success), John Jantsch walks through the new reality of AI search visibility and why it is a current problem, not a future one. He breaks it into three things every business has to get right: findable, credible, and retrievable. That means building real topic authority instead of stuffing keywords, turning your website into a selling tool instead of a brochure, using hub pages to own a topic, and treating your third-party presence as infrastructure rather than housekeeping.

    This one is for small business owners, marketers, and consultants who suspect their website is stuck in 2019 and want a strategic, non-technical way to get found first. John also shares a simple test you can run in 60 seconds to see exactly where you stand against your competitors.

    Guest Bio

    John Jantsch is the founder of Duct Tape Marketing and the host of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. He is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author known for turning marketing strategy into a practical system small businesses can actually run. His books include Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, Duct Tape Selling, and The Ultimate Marketing Engine, the source of the Seven Steps framework featured in this series. Through Strategy First™ and the Marketing Operating System, John and his network of certified consultants help founders install strategy before tactics and build marketing that compounds over time. He works with business owners through fractional CMO engagements and shares field-tested, no-hype advice with the podcast audience each week.

    Key Takeaways

    • Run the test: open an AI tool and ask the three questions your best customers ask before they hire someone like you. See if you show up, your competitors show up, or nobody does.
    • AI search is a current reality, not a future one. Many businesses are still optimized for 2019, when ranking in Google Maps or search was the whole game.
    • Three things matter now: be findable, be credible, be retrievable.
    • Findable means topic authority you can prove with case studies, reviews, and real results, not a page built around three or four keywords.
    • Credible means a homepage that makes the right buyer feel understood in seconds. Most founders have not read their own homepage in years.
    • Retrievable means AI can actually read and describe you, which depends on real content, structured data, reviews, citations, and mentions across the web.
    • Your website should be a selling tool, not a brochure. A brochure describes. A selling tool converts.
    • Lead with a core message above the fold: who you serve and how you solve their problem better than anyone, not a description of your industry.
    • Hub pages are your topic authority unit. Build one deep, organized guide on a core topic, linked to subtopic posts, and both AI and search engines reward it.
    • Treat directories, reviews, and third-party mentions as infrastructure you build over time, not one-time housekeeping.

    Great Moments

    • [00:43] The 60-second test: ask an AI tool the three questions your customers ask, then describe what you find.
    • [01:16] Why this is a current problem and a real opportunity for founders who act now.
    • [03:39] The framework: findable, credible, and retrievable, and why it is strategic rather than technical.
    • [05:42] Credible: does your site confirm the visitor is in the right place?
    • [06:04] When did you last actually read your homepage?
    • [08:25] Mining your reviews for the real problems you solve and the fears buyers carry.
    • [10:45] Your core message above the fold and naming your ideal client.
    • [12:34] Hub pages explained, using the kitchen remodel example.
    • [14:48] Organizing reviews around topics as real proof only you can offer.
    • [17:05] Run the test, screenshot your baseline, and where to go next.

    Memorable Quotes

    • “We are not reacting to the new realities of AI or Google. We are reacting to how people choose to buy today.”
    • “A brochure describes. A selling tool converts.”
    • “When is the last time you actually read your homepage?”
    • “This is strategic. It is not technical. A lot of SEO folks love technical because technical is hard to confuse people with.”
    • “A lot of people look at directories as housekeeping. Today it is more like infrastructure.”

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    John Jantsch (00:03.01)

    Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest today. Again, some of you that have been following along may recall I am doing the seven steps to small business marketing success. This is actually episode number three, step number three. So you can check out in the show notes the past sessions as well if you’re just trying to catch up. But today I want to talk about this re new reality. our businesses have

    possibly become invisible to AI search. In fact, I want you to do this test.

    John Jantsch (00:43.394)

    Go to Chat CPT Perplexity Claude, take your pick, right? Type in three questions that your best customers look for or ask when they are looking for a business like yours. Not anything about your particular business, but the the problems they’re trying to solve, the the issues that they have. something that they would ask before hiring somebody you. Now, we you can stop the episode right now and do that. I’ll wait. but.

    John Jantsch (01:16.44)

    Describe what mu what you find. think about what you find. Is it nothing? Is it you? are you dominating? That would be awesome, of course. that’s a new reality. and this isn’t a future problem. This isn’t coming. this is a current one. Now, a lot of local businesses are still showing up in in Google and Google Maps, and that’s still important, but it’s it’s fading a bit, right? people, I don’t know if it’s right or not, but people go today and when they see those like.

    Best remodeling contractor in SoSo City, and AI tells them three companies, they believe it. because they’ve ty typically typed in who do kitchens in older home homes who blah, blah, blah, blah. So it’s a very specific type of search now. And the results that come up there are the ones that are winning. so are you coming up there or are your competitors coming up there? I mean, this is this is how research is being done today. and and I think

    A lot of small businesses are still optimized for, I don’t know, 2019. when all you needed to do, boy, if you showed up on that Google Maps or you showed up in in Google search, then that, you know, that was really all it took. I think this is an opportunity. I mean, I think the founders who act now still absolutely have the the opportunity. It’s kind of like when we first went online, we first started blogging, all those kinds of things.

    The opportunity now is to actually be first in AI search. So what’s changed? for 20 years, as I said, you know, Google, can Google find you? I mean, in a lot of ways, we got lazy because that was the only question you really had to answer. it it still applies. It’s just not the whole answer anymore. so what we have to do or or we have to think in terms of is not just

    search results, keyword phrases, all the things that were thrown around by SEO folks so much. We have to be findable, we have to be credible, and we have to be retrievable. Those are three things I really want to talk about. And and it’s not I I’m not here to talk about how to hack SEO or how to hack, you know, GEO or whatever new term they’re gonna come up w with, you know, for for these various engines. It’s really just more a matter of how

    John Jantsch (03:39.276)

    We have to get our story out the same way we always have. It’s just sometimes you have to adapt to the new realities of of the buyer. I mean, and I think that’s something that doesn’t get said enough, is that we’re not reacting to the new realities of AI or of Google. We’re reacting to how people choose to buy today. And that’s really if you keep that in mind, and you keep in mind what they have available to them, that’s what we need to really respond to and not just.

    Some new platform or some new tool or some new trend or some new hype. All right. So findable. there really is traditional search, social search, and now AI mediated. I don’t know what we would call it, search. Those are the three kinds of search that we have to to respond to today. And again, most people have really just thought about one of those. So topic authority.

    Think about that. It used to be keywords, right? We we wanted to have a page that that we optimized for you know three or four keywords that people would search and that the search engines would would actually be keyed on. and today it’s really more about topic authority, a deep, rich topic authority.

    That you can actually prove that you were an expert in, not that you can write about, but that you can actually prove you have the results, you have the case studies, you have the reviews, you have all the things that would human, real human beings would be saying about your business.

    This is strategic. It’s not technical. And I think a lot of times that’s what we’ve done. We’ve kind of defaulted to the technical aspects. And frankly, a lot of SEO folks love that because technical is hard. Technical is easy to confuse. strategic is not so much, frankly. And I think that that’s the the the part, while it’s a mindset shift, I think that’s the part that’s the real opportunity for folks. So credible.

    John Jantsch (05:42.23)

    Is the second part. So findable, topic authority, credible. Does your site confirm that they’re in the right place? And a lot of times again, I I could talk to I’m blue in the face about websites and and the brochure aspect of them as opposed to the practical aspect of them, but

    John Jantsch (06:04.588)

    Here’s a here’s a question I love to ask people. When’s the last time you read actually read your homepage? that’s what I find is quite often the case. We we’ll start working for somebody and we’ll have lots of suggestions about ways to improve their homepage. And they actually are like, I didn’t even realize we said that, or we don’t even offer that service anymore. so you most founders haven’t done it in years. And I and I think that quite often we run across sites that reflect the reality of a business three years ago.

    I I actually ran into somebody said they haven’t updated, they haven’t changed one thing on their website since 2019. We are in 2026 today. you know, that that I don’t even want to start with how much has changed since 2019. but but clearly that site is not going to perform. and and the thing is, a lot of people get very focused on design. Design’s really not going to solve the problem. Yes, the site has to look like somebody.

    thinks it’s going to look, or that they’re used to how to navigate, you know, how it looks. But it’s really more about deep proof of real work and and a connection so that when the buyer or potential buyer shows up, says, you get me, or I I feel heard, or you understand the problems that I’m trying to solve. All right. So then the last one is retrievable. So we’ve got findable, credible,

    And retrievable. So this is probably kind of a new one for many people. AI builds its answers from whatever is publicly available on a website, like your website content, structured data, third-party presence, reviews, citations, right? And so all of those things have to be there if if your content is

    Very thin, if it is missing structured data, if it’s if there’s weak external presence, meaning that that people aren’t linking back to it, people aren’t talking about it. AI can can either find you or really can’t describe you with accuracy. And that’s why we really want to start talking about, you know, real FAQs. Go read every one of those reviews that you have gotten. plug them into an AI tool and ask that to to analyze and summarize the reviews that you’ve gotten.

    John Jantsch (08:25.382)

    many times you that that will be the the absolute gold mine of the problems that you really solve. And then the flip side of that, the fears that a client or your your clients at least were really worried about in in in engaging a company like yours or or your competitors. And I think that that’s where we have to start thinking about real content.

    That addresses those things because that’s what people are searching. They’re going out there and saying, I want to find a contractor that won’t destroy my home, that won’t let my dog out. I mean, they’re asking very specific things like that. And that’s what AI is trying to surface. And all it does is goes out there and and reads a whole bunch of stuff. and and in fact, we’re seeing that businesses that that write that real stuff, the voice of customer, really putting their reviews

    Out there as like, here’s the problems we solve. Maybe didn’t even have a great search presence before because search was dominated by companies that knew how to hack the algorithm. But AI doesn’t care about the what Google used to care about. it really cares about retrieving the data to very specific searches that people are making today. So, all right, here are three things that you need to build.

    Your website has to be a selling tool, not a brochure. Hub pages, something I’ve talked about for many years. And the beauty is they become more important than ever. So I’m going to review review that. And then the last one is third party presence. And that’s a part that many business owners, I won’t say they neglect, but it’s just the hard part in a lot of cases. It’s the part that you don’t control, that you don’t own. And so you have to be very intentional about making it happen.

    All right. So the website, a brochure describes a selling tool converts. That’s the difference, right? And so there are really four things that I think have to be there. They are a priority. there is an order to them. your core message above the fold. Here’s who we serve, here’s how we solve their problem better than anyone ever thought about. Not here’s what we do. your ideal client needs to be named. It’s like we serve and we are the best.

    John Jantsch (10:45.848)

    Better than anyone at serving XYZ. Very specific. Identify segments, whatever it is, identify them so that when somebody arrives there, they’re like, Okay, you you work with people like me.

    Heart stop on what’s next, right? Not a menu, not contact us. One frictionless action for the person who’s ready. Schedule a consultation. Download this free assessment. get a quote. don’t have a dozen ways that people can think about contacting you. Have very active, not passive, very active. Here is why you should contact us. Here’s what you’ll get when you schedule. Here is the the

    you know, tool that you can use to download to solve your problem. Have a very specific call to action.

    Probably what I see more than anything is that first one. The core message is is either buried, generic, or missing entirely. I can’t tell you how many sites I still run across that above the fold, first thing somebody reads is a description of what your profession is, what your industry is. We are accountants in XYZ City. and that was a old SEO holdover. but what somebody wants to know is who you serve.

    How you solve their problem, how you how you solve their problem like nobody else ever dreamed of doing. That’s what they need to understand first. All right, hub pages. So this is, I mentioned already, topic authority. This is your topic authority unit, is a hub page. And so the idea is if you think about a book, you’ve got a large body of work that is organized around chapters. And that’s really what a hub page is. So if you have a topic,

    John Jantsch (12:34.478)

    Home remodeling kitchens, for example. that’s a topic that somebody who wants to remodel a kitchen is going out there and looking for information about. So if you had the page that says everything you need to know about remodeling, but again, that’s gonna be broken up into getting ready to remodel. Should you remodel?

    Design considerations, appliances, pre-construction, construction, after finishes. I mean, a whole category of subtopics. And so the idea behind a hub page is somebody arrives at that page, maybe they just want to know about wallpaper today. but they are remodeling a kitchen. So they find that page, and then there’s a subtopic on you know wall finishes. And so they jump over to that, but then they jump back to the hub page.

    So, if when they want to talk about appliances or kitchen countertops, for example. And so this is like the entire guide, the ultimate guide to remodeling your kitchen, has all these subtopics that are essentially blog posts that you link out to. So this, but this page becomes the collection or the structure of all of that topic. And so what that certainly tells the AIs, sells the search engines has for years.

    That this is an authoritative page on this topic that then has may it might have 10, 20, 30,000 words ultimately collected in a number of blog posts that are on subtopics. So it’s it’s probably more about it’s not the it’s not the content. Well, the content’s important, but a huge part of it is the structure of the content. this is like a jumping off point for anybody who wants to know about that topic. And the AI tools as well as the search engines absolutely love that.

    And the beauty from a practical small business owner standpoint is that’s something you can structure, plan, take a year to build. It’s like writing a book, as I said. it just has all of the topics organized on this one page. and you could start having case studies, you can start having look through all of your reviews, and somebody said about how clean you are, somebody said.

    John Jantsch (14:48.154)

    about your pricing. somebody said about your design. So you you all of a sudden can start organizing your reviews even around some of these topics. And that’s that’s what the AI tools want to see. That’s what they they want to see, topic authority, topic expertise with real proof, not just 700 words that AI spun up, real proof that only you, you’re the only ones who can actually talk about what that client got as a result. and so hub pages are

    to me, really your secret weapon to dominate. We’ve done it for we’ve done them for many, many clients. And they rank have always ranked in SEO and they are always ranking now in AI searches because of the nature the the the real focus nature on a core topic. third party so AI doesn’t just use your website.

    I mean, really the search engines never did too. That’s why p you hear people talk about backlinks and reviews and and getting other people in social media to talk about your products and services. That’s always been important. So things like your Google Business profile, industry directories, reviews, mentions, citations across the web, those are all things that you do actually have a way to actively participate in. You don’t control them necessarily, people write what they

    want to write or going to write, say in reviews and mentions. But you do have the ability to optimize, to, to make sure that your information is correct in those directories. That you are your you you if you do searches in AI, you’ll see there are certain directories and certain websites like Reddit and things that that some of the of of the AI tools actually rely on pretty heavily. And and those will change, evolve. They all, you know, they constantly are.

    But you get a sense of some places maybe that you’re not mentioned. Say how’s, you know, again, going back to where I’m remodeling contractor, is a source that a lot of the AI tools depend on. It’s an authoritative source. are you playing there? that that just gives you some some ideas on some third-party places. in a lot of ways, think about it as I think we’ve always thought about it as housekeeping.

    John Jantsch (17:05.848)

    To to be in those directories, to make sure that they were correct, that you didn’t have the wrong phone number. A lot of people look at that as housekeeping. And I think today, in today’s environment, it’s it’s more infrastructure. you know, it’s something that you actually have to build, it’s behind the scenes, it you know, it’s not gonna pay off today. Long term thing that you need to to build as part of the infrastructure of your business. So if you didn’t run that test, pause now and run that test.

    Screenshot the baseline. Are your your competitors showing up at when you do a search that your customers were are likely asking? are you showing up? it just kind of gives you the picture of, you know, if you’ve ignored this, it gives you the picture of what you have to do. so that’s really it today. I I will tell you that if if some of the things I talked about today, again, go get the free ebook. it’s dtm.

    world slash seven steps. I misspoke. We I think we’re charging $4.99 for it tremendous amount of value. It’s more of a workbook than an ebook. it’ll give you lots of things to think about, lots of things to work on as well. So it’s DTM.world seven steps. And if you just want to skip all of that and find out how working with us and and having us install strategy first in your business and then build a marketing operating system.

    with you that you own that that can address the each of these seven steps, that is just duct tapemarketing.com slash consultation. So thanks for tuning in. next episode, episode step number five of seven is coming up. So thanks for tuning in. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

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  • The Back Half of the Hourglass Is Where Your Best Growth Lives

    The Back Half of the Hourglass Is Where Your Best Growth Lives

    The Back Half of the Hourglass Is Where Your Best Growth Lives written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    The Marketing Hourglass has 7 stages: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, Refer. Most small businesses have systems for the first five. They know how to get found, how to build some trust, how to close. Then the marketing ends. Repeat and Refer, the back half, get left to chance. Good work, happy customers, and […]

    7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 3 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

    Catch the Full Episode

    john jantschOverview

    For 20 years, small business marketing came down to one question: can Google find you? That still matters. It is no longer the whole answer. Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude very specific questions, get a short list of names back, and trust what they read. If your business is not on that list, you are invisible at the exact moment someone is ready to buy.

    In this solo episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast (Step 3 of the Seven Steps of Small Business Marketing Success), John Jantsch walks through the new reality of AI search visibility and why it is a current problem, not a future one. He breaks it into three things every business has to get right: findable, credible, and retrievable. That means building real topic authority instead of stuffing keywords, turning your website into a selling tool instead of a brochure, using hub pages to own a topic, and treating your third-party presence as infrastructure rather than housekeeping.

    This one is for small business owners, marketers, and consultants who suspect their website is stuck in 2019 and want a strategic, non-technical way to get found first. John also shares a simple test you can run in 60 seconds to see exactly where you stand against your competitors.

    Guest Bio

    John Jantsch is the founder of Duct Tape Marketing and the host of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. He is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author known for turning marketing strategy into a practical system small businesses can actually run. His books include Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, Duct Tape Selling, and The Ultimate Marketing Engine, the source of the Seven Steps framework featured in this series. Through Strategy First™ and the Marketing Operating System, John and his network of certified consultants help founders install strategy before tactics and build marketing that compounds over time. He works with business owners through fractional CMO engagements and shares field-tested, no-hype advice with the podcast audience each week.

    Key Takeaways

    • Run the test: open an AI tool and ask the three questions your best customers ask before they hire someone like you. See if you show up, your competitors show up, or nobody does.
    • AI search is a current reality, not a future one. Many businesses are still optimized for 2019, when ranking in Google Maps or search was the whole game.
    • Three things matter now: be findable, be credible, be retrievable.
    • Findable means topic authority you can prove with case studies, reviews, and real results, not a page built around three or four keywords.
    • Credible means a homepage that makes the right buyer feel understood in seconds. Most founders have not read their own homepage in years.
    • Retrievable means AI can actually read and describe you, which depends on real content, structured data, reviews, citations, and mentions across the web.
    • Your website should be a selling tool, not a brochure. A brochure describes. A selling tool converts.
    • Lead with a core message above the fold: who you serve and how you solve their problem better than anyone, not a description of your industry.
    • Hub pages are your topic authority unit. Build one deep, organized guide on a core topic, linked to subtopic posts, and both AI and search engines reward it.
    • Treat directories, reviews, and third-party mentions as infrastructure you build over time, not one-time housekeeping.

    Great Moments

    • [00:43] The 60-second test: ask an AI tool the three questions your customers ask, then describe what you find.
    • [01:16] Why this is a current problem and a real opportunity for founders who act now.
    • [03:39] The framework: findable, credible, and retrievable, and why it is strategic rather than technical.
    • [05:42] Credible: does your site confirm the visitor is in the right place?
    • [06:04] When did you last actually read your homepage?
    • [08:25] Mining your reviews for the real problems you solve and the fears buyers carry.
    • [10:45] Your core message above the fold and naming your ideal client.
    • [12:34] Hub pages explained, using the kitchen remodel example.
    • [14:48] Organizing reviews around topics as real proof only you can offer.
    • [17:05] Run the test, screenshot your baseline, and where to go next.

    Memorable Quotes

    • “We are not reacting to the new realities of AI or Google. We are reacting to how people choose to buy today.”
    • “A brochure describes. A selling tool converts.”
    • “When is the last time you actually read your homepage?”
    • “This is strategic. It is not technical. A lot of SEO folks love technical because technical is hard to confuse people with.”
    • “A lot of people look at directories as housekeeping. Today it is more like infrastructure.”

    Email

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    John Jantsch (00:03.01)

    Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest today. Again, some of you that have been following along may recall I am doing the seven steps to small business marketing success. This is actually episode number three, step number three. So you can check out in the show notes the past sessions as well if you’re just trying to catch up. But today I want to talk about this re new reality. our businesses have

    possibly become invisible to AI search. In fact, I want you to do this test.

    John Jantsch (00:43.394)

    Go to Chat CPT Perplexity Claude, take your pick, right? Type in three questions that your best customers look for or ask when they are looking for a business like yours. Not anything about your particular business, but the the problems they’re trying to solve, the the issues that they have. something that they would ask before hiring somebody you. Now, we you can stop the episode right now and do that. I’ll wait. but.

    John Jantsch (01:16.44)

    Describe what mu what you find. think about what you find. Is it nothing? Is it you? are you dominating? That would be awesome, of course. that’s a new reality. and this isn’t a future problem. This isn’t coming. this is a current one. Now, a lot of local businesses are still showing up in in Google and Google Maps, and that’s still important, but it’s it’s fading a bit, right? people, I don’t know if it’s right or not, but people go today and when they see those like.

    Best remodeling contractor in SoSo City, and AI tells them three companies, they believe it. because they’ve ty typically typed in who do kitchens in older home homes who blah, blah, blah, blah. So it’s a very specific type of search now. And the results that come up there are the ones that are winning. so are you coming up there or are your competitors coming up there? I mean, this is this is how research is being done today. and and I think

    A lot of small businesses are still optimized for, I don’t know, 2019. when all you needed to do, boy, if you showed up on that Google Maps or you showed up in in Google search, then that, you know, that was really all it took. I think this is an opportunity. I mean, I think the founders who act now still absolutely have the the opportunity. It’s kind of like when we first went online, we first started blogging, all those kinds of things.

    The opportunity now is to actually be first in AI search. So what’s changed? for 20 years, as I said, you know, Google, can Google find you? I mean, in a lot of ways, we got lazy because that was the only question you really had to answer. it it still applies. It’s just not the whole answer anymore. so what we have to do or or we have to think in terms of is not just

    search results, keyword phrases, all the things that were thrown around by SEO folks so much. We have to be findable, we have to be credible, and we have to be retrievable. Those are three things I really want to talk about. And and it’s not I I’m not here to talk about how to hack SEO or how to hack, you know, GEO or whatever new term they’re gonna come up w with, you know, for for these various engines. It’s really just more a matter of how

    John Jantsch (03:39.276)

    We have to get our story out the same way we always have. It’s just sometimes you have to adapt to the new realities of of the buyer. I mean, and I think that’s something that doesn’t get said enough, is that we’re not reacting to the new realities of AI or of Google. We’re reacting to how people choose to buy today. And that’s really if you keep that in mind, and you keep in mind what they have available to them, that’s what we need to really respond to and not just.

    Some new platform or some new tool or some new trend or some new hype. All right. So findable. there really is traditional search, social search, and now AI mediated. I don’t know what we would call it, search. Those are the three kinds of search that we have to to respond to today. And again, most people have really just thought about one of those. So topic authority.

    Think about that. It used to be keywords, right? We we wanted to have a page that that we optimized for you know three or four keywords that people would search and that the search engines would would actually be keyed on. and today it’s really more about topic authority, a deep, rich topic authority.

    That you can actually prove that you were an expert in, not that you can write about, but that you can actually prove you have the results, you have the case studies, you have the reviews, you have all the things that would human, real human beings would be saying about your business.

    This is strategic. It’s not technical. And I think a lot of times that’s what we’ve done. We’ve kind of defaulted to the technical aspects. And frankly, a lot of SEO folks love that because technical is hard. Technical is easy to confuse. strategic is not so much, frankly. And I think that that’s the the the part, while it’s a mindset shift, I think that’s the part that’s the real opportunity for folks. So credible.

    John Jantsch (05:42.23)

    Is the second part. So findable, topic authority, credible. Does your site confirm that they’re in the right place? And a lot of times again, I I could talk to I’m blue in the face about websites and and the brochure aspect of them as opposed to the practical aspect of them, but

    John Jantsch (06:04.588)

    Here’s a here’s a question I love to ask people. When’s the last time you read actually read your homepage? that’s what I find is quite often the case. We we’ll start working for somebody and we’ll have lots of suggestions about ways to improve their homepage. And they actually are like, I didn’t even realize we said that, or we don’t even offer that service anymore. so you most founders haven’t done it in years. And I and I think that quite often we run across sites that reflect the reality of a business three years ago.

    I I actually ran into somebody said they haven’t updated, they haven’t changed one thing on their website since 2019. We are in 2026 today. you know, that that I don’t even want to start with how much has changed since 2019. but but clearly that site is not going to perform. and and the thing is, a lot of people get very focused on design. Design’s really not going to solve the problem. Yes, the site has to look like somebody.

    thinks it’s going to look, or that they’re used to how to navigate, you know, how it looks. But it’s really more about deep proof of real work and and a connection so that when the buyer or potential buyer shows up, says, you get me, or I I feel heard, or you understand the problems that I’m trying to solve. All right. So then the last one is retrievable. So we’ve got findable, credible,

    And retrievable. So this is probably kind of a new one for many people. AI builds its answers from whatever is publicly available on a website, like your website content, structured data, third-party presence, reviews, citations, right? And so all of those things have to be there if if your content is

    Very thin, if it is missing structured data, if it’s if there’s weak external presence, meaning that that people aren’t linking back to it, people aren’t talking about it. AI can can either find you or really can’t describe you with accuracy. And that’s why we really want to start talking about, you know, real FAQs. Go read every one of those reviews that you have gotten. plug them into an AI tool and ask that to to analyze and summarize the reviews that you’ve gotten.

    John Jantsch (08:25.382)

    many times you that that will be the the absolute gold mine of the problems that you really solve. And then the flip side of that, the fears that a client or your your clients at least were really worried about in in in engaging a company like yours or or your competitors. And I think that that’s where we have to start thinking about real content.

    That addresses those things because that’s what people are searching. They’re going out there and saying, I want to find a contractor that won’t destroy my home, that won’t let my dog out. I mean, they’re asking very specific things like that. And that’s what AI is trying to surface. And all it does is goes out there and and reads a whole bunch of stuff. and and in fact, we’re seeing that businesses that that write that real stuff, the voice of customer, really putting their reviews

    Out there as like, here’s the problems we solve. Maybe didn’t even have a great search presence before because search was dominated by companies that knew how to hack the algorithm. But AI doesn’t care about the what Google used to care about. it really cares about retrieving the data to very specific searches that people are making today. So, all right, here are three things that you need to build.

    Your website has to be a selling tool, not a brochure. Hub pages, something I’ve talked about for many years. And the beauty is they become more important than ever. So I’m going to review review that. And then the last one is third party presence. And that’s a part that many business owners, I won’t say they neglect, but it’s just the hard part in a lot of cases. It’s the part that you don’t control, that you don’t own. And so you have to be very intentional about making it happen.

    All right. So the website, a brochure describes a selling tool converts. That’s the difference, right? And so there are really four things that I think have to be there. They are a priority. there is an order to them. your core message above the fold. Here’s who we serve, here’s how we solve their problem better than anyone ever thought about. Not here’s what we do. your ideal client needs to be named. It’s like we serve and we are the best.

    John Jantsch (10:45.848)

    Better than anyone at serving XYZ. Very specific. Identify segments, whatever it is, identify them so that when somebody arrives there, they’re like, Okay, you you work with people like me.

    Heart stop on what’s next, right? Not a menu, not contact us. One frictionless action for the person who’s ready. Schedule a consultation. Download this free assessment. get a quote. don’t have a dozen ways that people can think about contacting you. Have very active, not passive, very active. Here is why you should contact us. Here’s what you’ll get when you schedule. Here is the the

    you know, tool that you can use to download to solve your problem. Have a very specific call to action.

    Probably what I see more than anything is that first one. The core message is is either buried, generic, or missing entirely. I can’t tell you how many sites I still run across that above the fold, first thing somebody reads is a description of what your profession is, what your industry is. We are accountants in XYZ City. and that was a old SEO holdover. but what somebody wants to know is who you serve.

    How you solve their problem, how you how you solve their problem like nobody else ever dreamed of doing. That’s what they need to understand first. All right, hub pages. So this is, I mentioned already, topic authority. This is your topic authority unit, is a hub page. And so the idea is if you think about a book, you’ve got a large body of work that is organized around chapters. And that’s really what a hub page is. So if you have a topic,

    John Jantsch (12:34.478)

    Home remodeling kitchens, for example. that’s a topic that somebody who wants to remodel a kitchen is going out there and looking for information about. So if you had the page that says everything you need to know about remodeling, but again, that’s gonna be broken up into getting ready to remodel. Should you remodel?

    Design considerations, appliances, pre-construction, construction, after finishes. I mean, a whole category of subtopics. And so the idea behind a hub page is somebody arrives at that page, maybe they just want to know about wallpaper today. but they are remodeling a kitchen. So they find that page, and then there’s a subtopic on you know wall finishes. And so they jump over to that, but then they jump back to the hub page.

    So, if when they want to talk about appliances or kitchen countertops, for example. And so this is like the entire guide, the ultimate guide to remodeling your kitchen, has all these subtopics that are essentially blog posts that you link out to. So this, but this page becomes the collection or the structure of all of that topic. And so what that certainly tells the AIs, sells the search engines has for years.

    That this is an authoritative page on this topic that then has may it might have 10, 20, 30,000 words ultimately collected in a number of blog posts that are on subtopics. So it’s it’s probably more about it’s not the it’s not the content. Well, the content’s important, but a huge part of it is the structure of the content. this is like a jumping off point for anybody who wants to know about that topic. And the AI tools as well as the search engines absolutely love that.

    And the beauty from a practical small business owner standpoint is that’s something you can structure, plan, take a year to build. It’s like writing a book, as I said. it just has all of the topics organized on this one page. and you could start having case studies, you can start having look through all of your reviews, and somebody said about how clean you are, somebody said.

    John Jantsch (14:48.154)

    about your pricing. somebody said about your design. So you you all of a sudden can start organizing your reviews even around some of these topics. And that’s that’s what the AI tools want to see. That’s what they they want to see, topic authority, topic expertise with real proof, not just 700 words that AI spun up, real proof that only you, you’re the only ones who can actually talk about what that client got as a result. and so hub pages are

    to me, really your secret weapon to dominate. We’ve done it for we’ve done them for many, many clients. And they rank have always ranked in SEO and they are always ranking now in AI searches because of the nature the the the real focus nature on a core topic. third party so AI doesn’t just use your website.

    I mean, really the search engines never did too. That’s why p you hear people talk about backlinks and reviews and and getting other people in social media to talk about your products and services. That’s always been important. So things like your Google Business profile, industry directories, reviews, mentions, citations across the web, those are all things that you do actually have a way to actively participate in. You don’t control them necessarily, people write what they

    want to write or going to write, say in reviews and mentions. But you do have the ability to optimize, to, to make sure that your information is correct in those directories. That you are your you you if you do searches in AI, you’ll see there are certain directories and certain websites like Reddit and things that that some of the of of the AI tools actually rely on pretty heavily. And and those will change, evolve. They all, you know, they constantly are.

    But you get a sense of some places maybe that you’re not mentioned. Say how’s, you know, again, going back to where I’m remodeling contractor, is a source that a lot of the AI tools depend on. It’s an authoritative source. are you playing there? that that just gives you some some ideas on some third-party places. in a lot of ways, think about it as I think we’ve always thought about it as housekeeping.

    John Jantsch (17:05.848)

    To to be in those directories, to make sure that they were correct, that you didn’t have the wrong phone number. A lot of people look at that as housekeeping. And I think today, in today’s environment, it’s it’s more infrastructure. you know, it’s something that you actually have to build, it’s behind the scenes, it you know, it’s not gonna pay off today. Long term thing that you need to to build as part of the infrastructure of your business. So if you didn’t run that test, pause now and run that test.

    Screenshot the baseline. Are your your competitors showing up at when you do a search that your customers were are likely asking? are you showing up? it just kind of gives you the picture of, you know, if you’ve ignored this, it gives you the picture of what you have to do. so that’s really it today. I I will tell you that if if some of the things I talked about today, again, go get the free ebook. it’s dtm.

    world slash seven steps. I misspoke. We I think we’re charging $4.99 for it tremendous amount of value. It’s more of a workbook than an ebook. it’ll give you lots of things to think about, lots of things to work on as well. So it’s DTM.world seven steps. And if you just want to skip all of that and find out how working with us and and having us install strategy first in your business and then build a marketing operating system.

    with you that you own that that can address the each of these seven steps, that is just duct tapemarketing.com slash consultation. So thanks for tuning in. next episode, episode step number five of seven is coming up. So thanks for tuning in. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

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  • The 15 Most Pathetic Dr. Who Aliens Ever Created

    The 15 Most Pathetic Dr. Who Aliens Ever Created

    For every unforgettable monster that terrified generations of viewers, Doctor Who has also introduced creatures that left fans scratching their heads. Across decades of adventures, the series has experimented with countless alien designs, concepts, and villains. Some were meant to be frightening but thanks to low budgets and 1960s practical effects, looked unintentionally silly. Others had strange abilities, confusing motivations, or simply failed to create any sense of danger. Part of the show’s charm has always been its willingness to take creative risks, even when those risks did not pay off. These aliens became memorable for all the wrong reasons and remain among the most underwhelming creatures ever seen in the Whoniverse.

    The post The 15 Most Pathetic Dr. Who Aliens Ever Created appeared first on Den of Geek.

    Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.

    Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.

    Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move. 

    Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought. 

    Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).

    Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”

    These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.

    Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.

    By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.

    The post Overwatch’s Newest Hero Continues the Game’s Character Design Missteps appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • 15 Once-Common TV Tropes You Just Can’t Do Anymore

    15 Once-Common TV Tropes You Just Can’t Do Anymore

    TV Tropes are elements of television shows that get repeated constantly, working as plot threads that audiences know and recognize. They might seem repetitive, but it’s a way to suspend our disbelief and accept that this is the reality the show works with. The show must go on.

    But as people’s sensitivities change, so too do the things they’ll accept in their shows. Therefore, certain Tropes are no longer usable, since you’ll lose audience, money, and likely get ‘cancelled.’ It should be said, for good reason, since these added sensitivities are here to stay, letting us accept people of all backgrounds and not making jokes at their expense.

    The post 15 Once-Common TV Tropes You Just Can’t Do Anymore appeared first on Den of Geek.

    Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.

    Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.

    Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move. 

    Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought. 

    Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).

    Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”

    These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.

    Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.

    By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.

    The post Overwatch’s Newest Hero Continues the Game’s Character Design Missteps appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • 17 Behind-the-Scenes Movie Moments More Memorable Than the Films Themselves

    17 Behind-the-Scenes Movie Moments More Memorable Than the Films Themselves

    Hollywood history is full of productions marked by accidents, unexpected improvisations, creative conflicts, and extraordinary dedication that eventually became more talked about than the finished films themselves. In many cases, these behind the scenes moments were more remarkable than the drama in front of the camera. Whether they involved impossible challenges, surprising decisions, or unforgettable acts of commitment, these production tales developed lives of their own and remain fascinating long after audiences stopped discussing the movies.

    The post 17 Behind-the-Scenes Movie Moments More Memorable Than the Films Themselves appeared first on Den of Geek.

    Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.

    Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.

    Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move. 

    Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought. 

    Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).

    Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”

    These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.

    Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.

    By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.

    The post Overwatch’s Newest Hero Continues the Game’s Character Design Missteps appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • Summer Game Fest 2026: What We Learned About Resident Evil Veronica

    Summer Game Fest 2026: What We Learned About Resident Evil Veronica

    One of the biggest announcements at Summer Game Fest 2026 was its very first, with Capcom unveiling a cinematic trailer not only confirming it was developing a Resident Evil – Code: Veronica remake, but that it was expected to release in 2027. Simply titled Resident Evil Veronica, the announcement trailer retains the 2000 game’s story […]

    The post Summer Game Fest 2026: What We Learned About Resident Evil Veronica appeared first on Den of Geek.

    Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.

    Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.

    Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move. 

    Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought. 

    Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).

    Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”

    These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.

    Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.

    By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.

    The post Overwatch’s Newest Hero Continues the Game’s Character Design Missteps appeared first on Den of Geek.

  • Doctor Who Christmas Special Canceled by BBC as Russell T Davies Sets Record Straight

    Doctor Who Christmas Special Canceled by BBC as Russell T Davies Sets Record Straight

    Doctor Who is set to regenerate again, but this time in a rather different and sudden capacity. The BBC has confirmed today that it is putting the show out to competitive tender and that showrunner Russell T Davies and producer Bad Wolf have officially left the beloved British sci-fi series, with a planned Christmas special […]

    The post Doctor Who Christmas Special Canceled by BBC as Russell T Davies Sets Record Straight appeared first on Den of Geek.

    Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.

    Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.

    cnx.cmd.push(function() {
    cnx({
    playerId: “106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530”,

    }).render(“0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796”);
    });

    In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.

    Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move. 

    Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought. 

    Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).

    Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”

    These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.

    Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.

    By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.

    The post Overwatch’s Newest Hero Continues the Game’s Character Design Missteps appeared first on Den of Geek.