The Future Of Marketing Is Solving Problems, Not Selling Course Episode #70

Samuel Rodney: Hey world, welcome back to another episode of Be Inspired Podcast where we're inspiring you to live the abundant life you deserve. I have another awesome guest on the line. His name is Stefan Bajayu. So we're gonna get started. But before we get there, let's go ahead and ask. what if your next ⁓ never visits your website? What if they ask AI, read your watch your podcasts? see one social media post about you and decide whether they trust you before they ever click your name. The way people buy is changing faster than ever, and the business that succeed won't necessarily be the loudest. They'll be the ones that people trust the most. Today's conversation isn't about marketing. It's about earning attention, building credibility, and staying relevant in a world that's changing by the day. All right, so I have Stefan Bajeo on the line. He's a CEO, co-founder and CMO with twenty years of SEO experience. And if you don't know what SEO is, what is that, Stephen?

Stephan Bajaio: ⁓ well is Stefan's Employment Opportunities, last I checked. But no. ⁓ is ⁓ search engine optimization, it's AIO, it's GEO, it's AEO, it's ⁓ it's a soup of acronyms that frankly if not in marketing or a marketer yourself you probably don't really have to worry too much about. ⁓ it's a lot of distraction, I'll tell you that.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. Nice. I intentionally meant to ask you that question because I was reading your profile and it says Stevens. so I was all right, this is gonna be good to start off the conversation with.

Stephan Bajaio: No, I love I love the way I love you the way you introdu I think it's a great ⁓ honestly it's so funny because I'm on lots of podcasts and no one really intros it in saying that, hey, you might never visit the website, but you might actually formulate your opinions never visit the website. Never visit the brand and then you'd never know about it, supposedly as a marketer. So or even as a business owner. ⁓ I love that ⁓ I love that that take on it. ⁓ I'll twist one little thing you said and just say The insights are sitting within your company. Everyone has a tremendous amount of whether they know it or not.

Samuel Rodney: Mm.

Stephan Bajaio: One is recognizing it and then two is ⁓ using it and exposing it in a meaningful way. Because you're right, people are gonna see a lot more than your website. So, ⁓ when they do, what do they see, why do they see it? Is it just trying to sell stuff to people or are you actually solving people's problems? that's where I tend to be the ⁓ the the cool uncle in the room that's trying to convince companies, big and small, over my career to focus on solving, not necessarily just selling.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. And it's we're in a world where everybody's online, there's a lot of entrepreneurs online that are trying to sell you their course, their ebook, their coaching program. So being in the field for so long, what is something that differentiates the person that actually tries to help you versus the person that actually tries to help ⁓ sell sell you on their product?

Stephan Bajaio: Did you solve anything? Did you solve anything? If I have to put things behind a paywall and I have to keep trying to get you and trying to get you and trying to get you, the reality is, like, people aren't as stupid as you make them out to be as buyers, right? When you've gone through that process, you've gone through the process of someone up some really amazing social hook, right? And it gets you excited. And you click on it from Facebook or Instagram or wherever else, TikTok, ⁓ you click on it, you end up there, and then you're like, ⁓ it's a course. But it's free, but I have to spend an hour on a call with them to really understand their one method. But then when you go on that call, that call ends up being like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm not really gonna tell you the secret, because the secret, if you really want to know, is behind door A or B or C. And so then door A costs you this amount and door B costs you that amount and door C What are we doing? Like that's to me, that's about as good a sales model trying to convince people with free stuff to go sit through a ⁓ timeshare. If you've ever been at like a resort and they're trying to sell you a timeshare and you're like, ⁓ you'll get free movie tickets or you'll get this or you'll get that or we'll give you a two hundred dollar credit if you and you know people sit in that room because they're just like, I just want the money. Do I how fast can I get out of this thing? And then the poor person who's supposed to be selling it is like doing their best to kind of like bucking Bronco. Like, don't kick me off, don't kick me off, but I have to convince you and I have to convince you That's that's not that's not

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: There's no good in that. There's no even if what you end up selling the person ends up being transformative and wonderful and able to change their lives and makes them all these millions of dollars and capability and all the stuff they ever dreamed of. Everything you ever wanted is behind what that person knows, right? I don't know. That that to me feels super fake. And I think other people realize that too. I think we've all had one version or another of the story I just told. You've had that experience in your life. And so kind of it ⁓ sucks because it's kind of like relationships. If you had a bad relationship, it screws up your ability to get into the next one because you might go in there ⁓ than you would have otherwise.

Samuel Rodney: So ⁓

Stephan Bajaio: And it's the same thing from a consumer perspective. The more you've been burned, the more you feel this, I'm not sure. The more like when a really good opportunity is there, when the right person is there, you might not actually take the leap. And you might miss out on something amazing, right? And that's really frustrating for marketers and people who actually want to make change and positive change happen in the world. Because, and that's not to say you can't make money doing that. It's just to say, well.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: Question whether or not you offer value rather than trying to sell to someone. And then once you think you set provide value, question it again. think you've provided value? How much? Can I quantify it? Am I sure? what more could I provide to make this even more likely for them to get value. ⁓ you do those types of things, when you do that type of homework, when you think through that type of aspect, ⁓ not marketing ⁓ that regard. What you're doing is you're helping to solve. And when people are solved to, ⁓ willing to be sold to. ⁓ Because there's already been an exchange of effort and trust. But, you know, you could keep trying to just do pop ups and Sell, sell, sell. I mean, you can do that and it works for certain industries and certain places and certain price points. It does. But those are not what longstanding relationships are built on. Those are not what ⁓ people who then go off and tell their friends about them at the dinner table and then tell others they should consider it or when that topic of that type of business comes up they say have you heard of.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: Those usually aren't driven by the yeah, I once got a discount and once took a course and you know. No.

Samuel Rodney: So you talk about value a lot and just leading with value. So what are some examples of leading with value or leading with purpose before expecting the sale?

Stephan Bajaio: Okay, I'll give you a great example. Actually, you know what? ⁓ I'm gonna give you an example. I'm gonna use us, Five Logic as an example, but I wanna make it clear to people. I'm not doing that because I wanna sell you anything. I just wanna show you something I know is in my full control that I've done using AI, actually, in in a in a good way. Because I think a lot of people use AI in a very negative way. They go, easy button, let's produce a blog post. And by the way. Just for all the listeners, watchers out there, if anyone's telling you that creating AI content is gonna rank well in Google, it doesn't. If it does, it's for a very short period of time. And then that's a technical term I just told you in marketing, it's gonna drop. And flatten out. And then you're gonna have a hell of a time trying to get that traffic back. So trust me, it's not worth it. It also can have damage to your entire website. Why? AI doesn't want to eat its own tail. So when and AIs are out there looking for great content to cite and mention, ⁓ they were using AI content to do that, imagine what that would end up doing. It would j just create this flywheel, this horrible snake eating its own tail, never actually adding anything new or beneficial to the picture. Not to mention it's only made up of stuff of the past, like things that it's been trained on. It's not anything new or novel usually in what it comes up with. But let's take all that aside. Let's back up to what you asked me. an example of providing value up front. I had a glossary of terms. A glossary of terms for SEO. One of the biggest problems in search engine optimization SEO is trying to explain to an executive over here who's responsible for the outcome of a website. Could be the owner, the founder, could be a large enterprise organization like I've worked with, like Uber, FedEx. And here I am trying to explain to the CMO who doesn't really know all the details of search, right? What's happening? ⁓ How does search work? I'm not gonna get into that, that's way too big. But search is very technical. It's also very art. That's why we called our company Vibe Logic. It has the art and the science of search. ⁓ Translating what usually the technical SEO is trying to tell the tech to the exec is usually where it all falls apart. They're gonna use technical terms in their meetings, in their emails, in their communication, the SEO does like canonical and 301 redirect and ⁓ crawl rates and crawl budgets and things that like the executive's not gonna go like, hold on, I don't know what that means, because you know, people don't like to admit when they don't know things, especially if they're responsible ultimately for the outcome of those things. But the reality is they don't, right? So, how do most people solve for that? Well, the way we used to solve for that was I'm gonna create a glossary and I'll make a page, maybe, or one big page that has all the different technical terms, and I might do a also if you wanna say it simply, here's the version you should say. Great. That means someone has to sit there and go through and no one's gonna do that. Like no one's going okay. So we agree no one is gonna sit there, not the SEO, not the executive, sit there and try and translate tech to exec. Okay, I don't know how to code. I don't. So instead of creating a blog post about the tech to exec, which I do, I write an article about the fact that the disconnect between the tech and the exec is stopping the company from succeeding. It's worse than a competitor, actually. Instead, I say, hmm, why can't I go and vibe code something with Claude think through how could create some value? Okay, step one, let's do something where It's a drop down option of I think 150 different technical terms. And if you select the term and you save it to a you can save it to a cheat sheet as the SEO, and it'll tell you what the other v what the what the l ling ⁓ in plane terms speak would be for that. So you say one thing, here's what it really means. So consider using this language instead of that one when you Speak, right? Whether it's your presentation or whatever. So we're helping the SEO there. And we let them save it to a cheat sheet, they can download and so forth. And you can look at all the different sections and scroll. It's it's like it's good, but it's not good enough. What about the executive on the other side who doesn't understand? I'm trying to solve the SEO converting it to exec. But what about the exec who gets the tech from the SEO and doesn't know what the hell's being said? Right? They're not going to go through this process and look for the things and the So create a version that allows them to copy and paste the email they got from the SEO in there. And anytime it sees a word like canonical or 301 redirect or whatever, pulls up what the description is underneath. It's literally an SEO tech to exec translator. it behind a paywall? No. Do you have to give me your email to get access to it? No. Do I think that if you were to use this, you're definitely my intended audience for my business? No. Is it helpful? Yeah. Do other SEOs go, whoa, this is a real asset. Like this is useful? Yup. Do we think that it might gain me links and authority and people talking about it? Bunch of people on social I know and respect in my industry have gone out and shared it. They've said this is a great resource, people should be using it. This helps solve a problem we all have. Is it gonna sell more for me? I don't know. Is it helpful? Yeah. Will someone inevitably see that and be like, wow, could I use that as part of a sales process and say, hey, you know what? The fact that you don't, that you're asking me for education on SEO, you don't understand certain aspects of it, it's confusing. Hey, you know what? I know that topic so well. Let me show you a resource on my resource pages, my resource center on vibalogic.com. Check this out. I built this just because I've seen this problem so often. Now, convert that into a sales conversation. What problems have you seen so often that you should be building something for your website as content? To solve, not to sell. To solve. That is an exact example of what you should be doing with your content right now. With your thought leadership, with your mind share, with what you know. Right? What you know is more than you ever really will probably more companies, especially if you're kind of older, I'm 47, I've got the gray hairs to prove it. I'll tell you. ⁓ This sounds egotistical. It's not meant to be. I promise it's a humble brag. I have forgotten more about leadership and marketing than a lot of the people I have conversations with. Because they just haven't had that much experience yet. Right? Now the funny part is most of my experience hasn't been recorded. It was before AI was recording everything, before transcriptions were everywhere, before every meeting you're on is being recorded. So a lot of my wisdom sits in here. And unless I take it and bring it down, notice how I said crazy like this. But if I don't take it and put it in some format that can either be consumed by an AI, by search, by someone else, with me. We're the only generation that's gonna have one foot in the before the great recording, as I call it, and a foot in the other part. The great recording started with phones. started with the fact that we were taking video now of everything that goes on around us. You go to a concert, how many people put up their phones rather than just experience it? right? ⁓ So you can have the same video everyone else had by one degree difference. ⁓ you know, rather than actually experiencing it, but that's what we do, and that's become socially acceptable. Soon it will be socially acceptable to have wearables on you at all times, and everything we do will be recorded. Not trying to be black mirror, not trying to be conspiracy theory about it. I'm just saying privacy's changing, people are changing. In the meantime, you're probably sitting on a tremendous amount of knowledge in your business, even if you don't have my gray hairs. If you've been around for long enough in your business, you've seen a lot of stuff. If you've been in an industry for a

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: I Samuel, how many podcasts have you had?

Samuel Rodney: ⁓ this is about sixty six, sixty seven sixty six

Stephan Bajaio: Sixty-six. All right. You've probably seen a bunch of podcasts, right? You've been a part of a bunch of podcasts. If we wanted to tap your brain about what makes the best podcast, how do you elicit the best from someone? How do you get someone like me who keeps talking? ⁓ do you shut them down and jump in? Go ahead. I'm giving you the the floor to do it. You get you get where I'm going? Like like

Samuel Rodney: Well. So ⁓ yeah. Yeah, you you elicit emotions, you look for the story behind the words they're saying.

Stephan Bajaio: You okay, so like you could probably teach a lesson on that. Does that mean you sell it? I don't know. I don't know your business. I don't know your business well enough. I don't know how make money. But just As an example, right? Like you have had those, as we call it, and I don't know if you've had that many, but there's something called the 10,000 hours, right? The ten thousand hours means you're an expert at something. You've had ten thousand hours doing something. Your body has muscle memory, it understands, it remembers, and whether that's your brain or whether it's your legs or whether it's you literally your physical body or your your Your mind, you have that in you, right? It's a gut emotion. It's read the book Blink if you don't know what I'm talking about. ⁓ free economics is another great example of that. But essentially, like this exists. So the question is, do you unlock that as a business? Right? Do you use that thought leadership? Do you use the humanity, by the way? Because humanity is gonna be very different now. As we move into this easy button, everyone produces a lot more content, a lot faster, a lot easier, less friction, right? and ⁓ amount does not mean value. Value will be harder to find now. So people are going to be looking for the human behind it. They're going to be looking for the story behind it. They're going to be looking to understand the eliciting of that human emotion that Samuel just said. That's going to be valuable. That's going to be quantifiable in a great way. That's one of what's going to make the difference between some article that has no name, author, and whatever versus something that's written by someone that you can actually go see who that someone was, see other things that were written by them, watch videos of them, watch podcasts of them. understand who they are and get context. Yes, sometimes you're just looking for an answer and there's no doubt the AIs are gonna do that. But a lot of times you want more than just a answer like that. You want to be able to trust and trust is going to be found in humanity. It's not going to be found in AI.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. So when did you realize that marketing was becoming less about the algorithms and more about the psychology?

Stephan Bajaio: Well, that's a great question. And in fact no one ever asked me that. So I will tell you that I learned that way early in my career when dealing in companies, right? So my clients were like Marriott ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ they were like Siemens and they were like ⁓ Uber and FedEx and Johns Hopkins and and Anne, right? Think NASCAR, all of these brands, right? Great, wonderful. I I got experience. I got the pain and the pleasure of dealing with them. me, both come along with it. ⁓ also the paychecks that go with them too. That's also nice. But but you learn real quick is that the ones that try to cut the corners to get to the sale. ⁓ Often miss the point. I like to look at content. When I think of content strategy, I break it down into three Ps. sorry. When you think about a topic or a term, we can call them a prompt, you know, things like that. When you look and try to understand that, ⁓ whether or not you're solving for it, you look at a web page. Is a point? Usually a bullet point. Is it a paragraph? Okay, we've got some text to give context. Is it a page? a lot more in-depth, ⁓ you better be an enough to talk on a page level, because if you just give me a bunch of marketing fluff along the way, you lose, right? Or is it a pass? Sometimes it's irrelevant and not worth doing, right? ⁓ But I've found when you look at a business and you look at the way that they approach things. Oftentimes they were shortcutting. An entire person's reason for engaging their business might be a bullet point. And they treated it like that. And then they're like, well, how come we're not getting the the people? How come they don't show up to our website? How come we don't rank for? And it was like, but guys, do you think that deserves ranking? Do you think you have a right? Just because you're a multimillion dollar brand? To put the fact in one bullet point that you provide this service and that's supposed to be enough for me who's looking for an answer, who's looking for a solution? No, it's not. And that doesn't make you the best website on the internet to answer and be there for this, right? Now, a paragraph, maybe. But usually a paragraph's among a bunch of other paragraphs, and it's kinda like, well, we want to make sure you understand this, but we're not willing to give you an entire page. Right? Versus like if it's an entire page, that might be the way I enter and first experience your website. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for me coming to your website and my first experience being around a single keyword, a single phrase, a single reason why I came there? When I come in, are you ready as a host to not just sell me a bunch of stuff, but give me an experience that makes me go, ⁓ I am in the right place. And you know what? What would have probably been a paragraph on another page probably means you have to take me to other pages or a page that talks about all the other pages as paragraphs with maybe bullet points, right? That I get it, it's a bigger thing. I came in looking for one thing, but technically ⁓ you guys could do a lot more for me. I should ⁓ I get it. Yeah, okay. That gets completely lost. And because companies have been so willing to just cut to the chase, they miss their audience. ⁓

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: They didn't serve them. They worried so much about what the offline experience looked like. They worried so much that they had good customer service and they were great at all the other things. And then they went to the web and they were kind of like, this is a second class citizen. This is a second version. This isn't really, you know, why does a site exist? I ask questions like that all the time to my clients. What's the intention of your website? What are you trying to do with this thing? You know, because people won't y they're just like, ⁓ we have to have one. We have to have website. No, hold on a second. What's its purpose? What is it supposed to do to your business? How does it help? Is it a mirroring of your business online? If so, is that just a brochure? Really? Then it could be a PDF. Would you be okay with your business being a PDF?

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: Get my point? So, like, I know I wax poetic on that, but like people don't really think about the fact that the website doesn't have the same friction as physicality. It doesn't require me to leave this colorful box. I can be anywhere in the universe. Well, maybe not anywhere in the universe, but I can be anywhere on this This little blue circle in the middle of the universe, and I can as long as I have Starlink or some internet connection, I can go and end up on your website. Right? Okay. But I can't do that physically in your business, your headquarters, whether you're B2B, B2C, your physical location, your multi-location, your any of the possible s versions of a business we might have. That requires a lot more work. So the frictionless version is the web. People are going to find

Samuel Rodney: Mm.

Stephan Bajaio: You, whether it's your website or the web presence you were talking about, Samuel, where you show up in other entities and they're gonna make opinions. They're gonna share those opinions, they're gonna feel those opinions, and they're gonna act on those opinions. Sometimes the action is not to act at all, not to take an action, not moving forward, considering them no longer part of my conversation, no longer letting them have any part of my mind. I'm not considering that company any longer. But the ones that do come across, you'll know about

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. if someone spends like shadowed your team for like one week, what would surprise them most about how you solve problems?

Stephan Bajaio: I'd probably frustrate him. that I'm a frustrating person. I just I have never, as you can probably tell by even the way I speak, I have ADD. I've been the most succinct individual. My head of operations, Jessica, would tell you this. I will probably generate more ideas in five minutes others do in a month. That's not meant to be like Not all of them are good. I y I've been told many times, you'll say the smartest and the dumbest thing in the room, Stefan. like, ⁓ some of my really good friends have said that to me. And I'm like, Okay. As long as some of the smartest ones are things we can act on ⁓ go take action, cool. So the way I like to think about things and the way I do think about things is not that linearly. I don't think of things ⁓ an A, B, C, D. I'm more of the vibe. I'm less of the logic. in the equation, right? let emotion ⁓ in a really horrible way, but I let emotion kind of put me in the shoes of the other individual. What would it feel like? What's the empathy, right? Empathize with what that person's going through. You know? Just think through like it's interesting to me. It's exciting to me. It's passionate to me ⁓ think through what would it be like if It's kinda why you watch movies, right? We watch movies because we want to see stories, we want to experience without actually physically experiencing it ourselves, right? I don't want to run from dinosaurs at Jurassic Park, but I do want to see them, right? And I want to see other people do it. the kind of holds true when you think about, you know, thinking through strategies and content and ideas. It's like, well, what would a person experience if they were going through that? If they were looking for something, if they're Trying to solve something that you provide, well, do they even know you exist first? And do they even really know their problem? And when they're trying to figure out what the problem really is, do you even have a say in that? Can you help them figure that out? Does that help you by helping them figure out whether or not the problem is something you could end up helping them with or not? Like, how early should you be involved in the conversation? And if so, how would you guide them? How would you help them? Right? I often wear a t-shirt that says if you're not helping people, you're just selling stuff. I really believe in that as a s as a as a statement, right? ⁓ it's not that I'm hippie and it's not that I don't like money or that I'm not, you know. No, none of those things are the case. I just really believe that businesses have the ability to solve problems and help people, ⁓ that's something you not consider that helpful, but others would at the times and places they need them. I mean. ⁓ Buying a pair of reading glasses 'cause I'm getting older. change my life, but I'm gonna look for ⁓ I'm gonna think about what I need. I'm gonna be told there are other things I haven't thought about when considering them. I'm gonna realize that maybe someone recognizing that A forty seven year old who now has to wear reading glasses doesn't enjoy that as an action and maybe I don't know, I was just on a networking call before we were all kind of we're all kind of bitching about the fact that we have these glasses and we feel super old ⁓ and None of them feel stylish or that you don't know where to put them. This feels like I have to say to everyone, hey man, I'm old. I can't see that well when I have to, right? It's and and if you know that, if you felt that, if you have sold these glasses and understand that, then you can get me and you can tell me in your messaging that you've solved some of these problems, that you have a ⁓ one that's not gonna break as easy, one that you're not gonna misplace because you're gonna wanna wear it, because it's fashionable, because because because

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: Because it blue light blocks and it's progressive instead of just a set of feeling like you're looking through a bunch of ⁓ magnifying glasses, you know, or binoculars and you feel like ugh. Right? So y'all didn't need to know about my eyesight, but I'm just trying to explain to you that there is nothing big or small that doesn't ultimately solve something. It's just a question of whether or not you take enough time to care. And the businesses that don't care will show up that way and people will not care about them. But when you as a business show up and care, when you as a business take the time, ⁓ you as a business

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: do more than press AI buttons and humanity and show that you get me as an individual and ⁓ prove that through the way you talk to me and the way you market to me and the way you you you understand me, then I'm more likely to buy your glasses. Yeah, I'm more likely to engage with your brand. Yeah, I'm more likely to tell other people about you.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. Like you did it perfectly right there where you talked about the what will make it more comfortable to not make you feel so old by hanging it on your shirt or ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Stephan Bajaio: Right, I mean if somebody came up with a good solution for that, like I literally had to walk into my bank today going like this like this. ⁓ for those who are just listening, I put it in my polo shirt ⁓ I put it on my head. Great. Otherwise, I'm trying to stuff them in my pocket and hope that I remember when I sit down that they don't break. Right? Like I don't know what the solutions for that are, but then again, I'm not in the glasses business. Someone else is. So that's on them to solve for me, and that's for them to tell me and give me the feeling like you're not alone. We get you. ⁓ we know this is not earth shattering, but it is something important. And when it is important to you, you're gonna care.

Samuel Rodney: Someone else. Yeah. So with that being said, what are some questions that your client should be asking you that they really do?

Stephan Bajaio: So good question. are some questions they should be asking? They should be asking, they should be asking where do we find the thought leadership in our company? Right? What where are the sources of that data? Where do we find the not just the individuals, but like there's data everywhere? There's so much data right now that you don't even think about. give you an example. if you're like a mid-sized company, I don't know how many millions of dollars you're doing, but let's just say you're doing like 10 million and maybe 10 to 15 million, okay? You have probably had a lawyer tell you a bunch of times you can't or can't publish something on your website. You've gotten to the point where you have a lawyer, they probably check some of the content you put out. And they might have come back, depending on how much content you create on your website, to tell you, hey, you know what, that's not okay or we have to rethink that or you know, it becomes what does that do? Well, it's not fun for anyone. Maybe the lawyer, 'cause they get the bill. But for the rest of us it's not fun, right? We we have to go back, rev revisit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That means somewhere over the past two or three years, you probably have anywhere between twenty to a hundred emails from a lawyer telling you reasons why certain content couldn't go live. That's a database. Have you even taken that database for a second, those emails, thrown them into a your favorite AI or notebook LLM, which now is Gemini LLM, or Gemini Notebook, I think it's now called, and and put them in there to create something that could allow you, like a custom GPT, to ultimately look at a piece of content before you try and ask the lawyer and automatically flag the six things from the past. based on that information, so that you can tell the lawyer, I was gonna do this, was gonna do this, was gonna do this, but because of the three things that I've learned from your previous emails on this date, this date, and this date, here's what I have to show you. You have the feeling that the lawyer, who by the way, oftentimes is just I hate to say it, kind of a decision on the fly as to whether or not that would be okay or not okay legally, right? It's a a lot of opinion. ⁓ don't think that's gonna sway their opinion? That's literally sitting in your inbox. Forget the idea of the chat logs that you've had that are available to you to understand what things customers like, don't like, have had problems with. The sales calls that are been recorded, hopefully over time, that you can analyze and understand. When people use this word, the likelihood of close rate is extremely small or whatever. Okay, cool. What does that tell us? How do we learn from that? How do we take that and think about that earlier on? If we're not a great solution for people who bring up this term and we agree, then what do we do to make sure that people can read or consume a piece of content so they don't end up on a sales call with us? Why? I just saved my sales team a ton of time of deals that aren't gonna go anywhere. Right? ⁓ no, but I didn't increase the number of deals. No, I increased the higher likelihood that you're gonna get deals that matter. Therefore, your close rate would be better. Therefore their payouts will be better. Therefore, therefore, therefore, right? People don't look at their businesses that way. They are in their business and they have their blinders on, and what they end up needing oftentimes is someone who's doesn't see things in straight lines like I do, to come in and say, if I'm not stuck in your structure, what do I see? What's available to you? Have you leveraged it? Could you leverage it more? And connect a bunch of dots that frankly, I don't create dots. I tend not to be in the dot creation business. I tend to be in the dot connection business that people just haven't put together yet.

Samuel Rodney: So data is very important, right? So can two ⁓

Stephan Bajaio: It's probably one of most unique things, I think. Not to cut you off, Samuel, but it's probably one of most unique things you have in this new world that you would be silly not to use, right? Everyone can use the same LLMs. Everyone can create the same blog post slop off the same data that it's training off of, right? The real difference.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: is like I said, that's that that knowledge base that's never made its way out there, that data set that's sitting inside of your chat logs, those sales calls you only you guys have had per se with those exact conversations, those exact pitches and things you could learn from. Unique data is the differentiator for businesses moving forward. It will 1000 be 1000% be. I don't know that AI and I don't think that AI stays the way it is. Chatbots is a crappy way for us to engage. With a technology that should be far more powerful than us having to ask. of that should be predictive. And it will be. We have to go through some pain first. That pain will be, I predict, a fall in the market, that's overdue. There's a recession in the United States that hasn't found its way openly, that will to happen. ⁓ The AI stocks, seven magic stocks, are probably gonna nosedive at some point because it's not. The math doesn't math. The data centers, all the debt, all the stuff we're hearing about, this shadow aspect. It's very reminiscent of two thousand eight. It's very, very reminiscent of two thousand. The dot com boom bust, okay? So it's coming. I'm not saying that because everyone should, ⁓ my god, prep and get down and your four one K's and ⁓ no no no. None of that.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. But just because of trends, trends.

Stephan Bajaio: Well yeah, and I think what we're gonna see is we're gonna see a bunch of people saying who are gonna get really frustrated by AI, 'cause they're gonna blame it. Not wrong. If it tanks the economy, right? And if it's also taking away a lot of jobs, which a lot of people are, I would say, probably wrongfully saying, Yeah, we're getting rid of all these people for AI. Yeah, I think that's a nice excuse. I'm not really sure you have AI down pat to replace individuals the way you say you do. Maybe some of the really big companies that have their processes down Like an Amazon, but the rest of them, Even the ones that ⁓ like they do ⁓ And the reality is, businesses complex organisms that have been built by humans, ⁓ they easily get ⁓ fit retrofitted with AI. They just don't. And nobody wants to kind of call that out, but I'm the one who's gonna say it. That is not something simple to replace. Processes don't get followed, people don't do all the things they're supposed to. To in order to make a business run. Most of the time, it's those exceptions that make the business actually happen. If you followed the letter of the law in every single business, it would probably fail. Right? So the reality is people are going to get really upset with AI for a while. And we're going to see this downtick of emotion against AI, this pushback, this it screwed up our economy, it was false, it was, it took jobs, it was, it was, it was. Until. Siri and Apple start doing predictive stuff. They start reducing the amount of noise in your life. They start making the decisions for you in a way that feels so personal. It'll be scary at first, but then you're gonna be like, thank God these guys just walked in and took all that. that noise out of my life and made it so much easier. I don't need to plan these things anymore. I don't need to make these decisions anymore. I don't need to worry about these things. I was willing to trade my privacy, access to my apps with Apple, and they were able to connect dots that couldn't otherwise be connected. And in doing so, they were able to predict things for me rather than have me have to ask for them. That's when AI really takes hold. when it becomes truly necessary because it should be doing the things that you need it to do without you asking. If you have to ask, it's another thing to think about and worry about like everything else. rid of that, get rid of the ask and just have it deliver. And even if it delivers 99 correctly and one time wrong, people will take that ⁓ and Thank God. And they will welcome AI into their lives in a way

Samuel Rodney: So I got a few more questions for you, but if you had to build a business from scratch today with no audience, no reputation and AI available to everyone, what would you focus on first?

Stephan Bajaio: This is gonna sound repetitive, but the problems. The business has to be based on a problem. I've ⁓ every time I built a team inside of a company, it's always been because of a problem. It's a problem we were running into, an issue, ⁓ friction, you know, and it and the way those teams have been the most successful are when we define what those problems are. We go after them and then we add on to those problems. Now what else? Now what else? Now what else? So the more down to it, are you really solving a problem? And again, ⁓ doesn't have to be world peace, right? doesn't have to be the biggest problem in the world. But if the friction is the fact there's no fashionable way to deal with these glasses, ⁓ and that's of a friction, have you heard it enough? that you've recognized it as a common problem, common enough that there's an addressable market for it, then you need to think about how to address that market. And in addressing that problem In addressing that, you are gonna develop who your ideal customer profile is. You're gonna develop your value propositions. You're gonna develop understanding of the audience and where they live and other adjacent things to them. People that have ⁓ reading glasses ⁓ go to CVS. Why? Prescriptions. Cool. Glasses are sold at CVS. Interesting. Okay. I would probably look at, well, how many ⁓ reading glasses get sold at CVS a year? Is that a market that's okay, what else do people of that age and need do? Where else do they exist? Where does that audience overlap with something that hasn't been tapped yet? So eye doctor, obviously, whatever. Okay. what about cardiologists? Eye eyeglasses and cardiologists? Yeah. don't think most people who go to cardiologists, hopefully, are older? Th ⁓ they doing something about their health? Sure. Do they probably have eyesight issues? Yeah, possible. Right? ⁓

Samuel Rodney: Yeah.

Stephan Bajaio: Okay. there ways to find ways to infuse? Now I'm not saying you're gonna start putting a kiosk at every cardiologist's office. It would be kind of strange, right? But I am saying that there's an overlap of audiences that exist naturally, that if you can recognize those opportunities as a business, you're smart. All you're doing is providing a solution in a place shape and form that your audience already exists. Those happen every day, all day long. People just don't recognize those Venn diagrams, the overlap, use them. The companies that do recognize those are the ones that kill it because they see an untapped potential ⁓ connect something that wasn't otherwise obvious. And you look at it, it's like ⁓ that's most obvious thing in the world. Right?

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. at the end of the day, what do you hope people remember about Five Logic? Not because of technology, but because of impact. ⁓

Stephan Bajaio: I mean I hope they remember that and from this conversation it all have to be huge, that the data ⁓ sits you, the unique ⁓ is your proposition, ⁓ understanding ⁓ a market, problem, a solution ⁓ is ⁓ the ⁓ And that finding ways to emphasize that in places where it's being sought after, in places it might be relevant to be sought after, ⁓ ways that actually help people rather than just sell are the of where we're going.

Samuel Rodney: So got two more questions for you, Stefan. imagine an entrepreneur listening today feels overwhelmed every week. There's a new platform, a new AI tool, and a new strategy. They feel like they're falling behind. What's the one principle they should hold on to that will still matter ten years from now?

Stephan Bajaio: Sure. Course. Content and wisdom is an asset. Treat it as such. I don't care what channel's gonna drive your business. ⁓ I used to say, ⁓ we're an SEO company. That's kinda silly 'cause if the search engine doesn't drive it, but I create a great piece of content with you that ends up serving you super well, but it's email that drives that and the newsletter and all of a sudden that becomes the top thing or maybe it gets promoted in social like that tech to SE tech to exec translator and it becomes your biggest thing, right? does it matter the channel? ⁓ Does it matter whether TikTok was the fad today or Pinterest or something else, right? Whether it was ⁓ ABM campaigns, account-based marketing, or some other thing. The the asset itself, that is what's at heart. That you can repurpose and change in whatever formats are the newest flavor of the week. But stay true to that aspect. Stay true to those processes. And I don't just mean in the content you create, I mean the business you run. I fired a client the other day. They were not a good fit any longer. They did not treat the team well. They were not to solve the problems the way we originally had talked about, and a new set of clients had come in and replaced them ⁓ terms of running the account. And it was no longer right for us. That is a that is a true core concept that I had promised and essentially espoused to my my team I wouldn't let them get beaten up and or mistreated and or put in situations where it wouldn't make sense for us to do business. So if you're gonna talk it, you better walk it. And ⁓ we now say that am I gonna use that as marketing material? No. But Does it show that I'm true to my and my principles? Absolutely. Could I change that into a social post? Sure. ⁓ could without ⁓ too much information about who the client was or what the situation was. ⁓ the concepts behind it are sound. Does it help other entrepreneurs consider things that aren't easy to make those decisions? Yeah it does. Is it helpful? Sure. Sell more for me? ⁓ don't know. In the long run, is it good karma? Will it come back to me? Maybe.

Samuel Rodney: Yeah. So last question for you. What is one thing you thought I would ask, but I didn't quite ask you?

Stephan Bajaio: Ha that's a great one. I love that question. ⁓ it was that question actually.

Samuel Rodney: Nice. Yeah, yeah. right. Hey Stefan, thank you so much for coming, sharing your heart, sharing your knowledge, sharing vibe logic with us. everything's gonna be linked up. If you enjoy this episode, go ahead and let's get down in the comments and have a conversation ⁓ and we'll you on the next episode of Be Inspired Podcast where we're inspiring you to live the abundant life you deserve. ⁓ Stefan, one last thing.

Stephan Bajaio: See what I did there.

Samuel Rodney: Where can people find you if they wanna connect?

Stephan Bajaio: Absolutely. So vibe logic dot com, V I B E L O I C dot com. I spelled that correctly. I suck at spelling. It's part of my nice learning disabilities. But also on LinkedIn, please don't come and sell me anything. I don't need the, hey, do you need any more clients? Blah, blah, blah stuff. Like I get that all the time and it's no fun. If you do actually, and let me throw this one out there because I think ⁓ Samuel's doing a great job of bringing folks on and allowing them a platform to share hopefully some wisdom and time with you, as well as value. So if you do value this podcast,

Samuel Rodney: I'll link it up.

Stephan Bajaio: ⁓ One, give them a like, a share, a subscribe wherever you're listening or watching it. Two, send him a quick LinkedIn not to overwhelm him, sorry, dude, but like, or me, ⁓ oftentimes we do this and I, you know, we're not doing it for the big bucks, right? We're doing it to help others. ⁓ if it does impact you, if a little bit of this had any impact on you whatsoever, let us know. Let him know. I mean, it ⁓ the kind of stuff that you get on a random Thursday, ⁓ at 2 p.m., that makes you feel awful. It's a little bit of dopamine. So feel free to give that, share that out. It's only gonna help the world. It'll take you three and a half seconds to do it. But it'll it'll be suit. I can I I feel like I could speak for Samuel. I'll definitely speak for myself and say it'll definitely be appreciated on the other end. So share a little bit of that. hit me up on LinkedIn. It is my ⁓ drug of choice. ⁓ free to, you know, comment on post, do some good stuff, follow vibe logic on there. ⁓ ⁓ happy to help any way I can.

Samuel Rodney: Right, so we'll see you on the next episode. Have a great week.

Stephan Bajaio: Thanks all.