Colton Hower: What a People-First Agency Model Actually Looks Like at Scale

What Makes a Consulting Firm Distinct When Everyone Is Smart

What does good marketing actually look like inside a firm that prides itself on results over recommendations? In this episode, Austin sits down with Barney O'Kelly, Head of Solutions & Product Marketing at AlixPartners, a global management consulting firm known for getting things done when the stakes are highest. Barney shares why he replaced the term "personal brand" with something far more human: be seen and make friends. He explains why the same processes behind building a romantic relationship are what drive successful business development, and why dissonance is the single biggest enemy of trust. The conversation covers AlixPartners' unique identity, built on three pillars its people, its work, and its history, and why those three things are what truly differentiate a firm in professional services. Barney also opens up about the evolution of his own marketing philosophy, how AlixPartners handled the Thomas Cook insolvency repatriation of 150,000 British holidaymakers, and why AI multiplies human expertise rather than replacing it. If you work in B2B marketing, consulting, or professional services, this episode is packed with grounded, practical thinking from someone who has seen firsthand what works and what does not. Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings In this episode, we discuss: 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction 01:00 - 04:00: What Good Marketing Actually Looks Like 04:00 - 06:00: Inside AlixPartners — What the Firm Actually Does 06:00 - 08:30: The Thomas Cook Repatriation Story 08:30 - 11:00: Be Seen and Make Friends 11:00 - 13:00: Dale Carnegie, Relationships, and Business Development 13:00 - 15:30: What Makes AlixPartners Truly Distinctive 15:30 - 18:30: Why Their Best People Resist Personal Branding 18:30 - 21:00: Availability, Trust, and Showing Up Consistently 21:00 - 23:30: Barney's Role — Head of Solutions Explained 23:30 - 26:00: How Barney Found His Marketing Philosophy 26:00 - 28:30: Unique POV vs. AI-Aggregated Content 28:30 - 31:30: AI as a Multiplier for Experienced Consultants 31:30 - 34:30: Why Implementation Is Still the Hard Part 34:30 - 37:00: The Future of Business Leadership and Technology 37:00 - 38:35: Where to Find Barney + Outro  Connect with Barney O'Kelly  https://www.linkedin.com/in/barneyokelly/  https://www.alixpartners.com/  FOLLOW US Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Colton Hower: What a People-First Agency Model Actually Looks Like at Scale

Most agencies tell you to niche down, lock clients into long-term retainers, and productize your offer. Colton Hower, Founder & CEO of Power Marketing Company, did the opposite and built a 190-client agency with a 91% retention rate in five years. In this episode, Colton breaks down the three Power Pillars that drive every client interaction, why 30-day contracts actually create stronger retention than annual retainers, and how leadership-led servicing sets Power apart from traditional agency models. He also shares how bringing on his COO and childhood best friend transformed their operations, why they time-track everything down to the minute, and how a free internship program, now drawing applicants from Columbia, Iowa State, and beyond, is quietly becoming one of their best talent pipelines. If you run an agency or a service business and want a different playbook for growth, retention, and team development, this conversation is packed with practical insight. Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings In this episode, we discuss: 00:00 - 00:43: Introduction 00:43 - 01:30: Why Colton Started Power Marketing 01:30 - 02:32: The People-Pleaser Mentality Behind the Business 02:32 - 03:56: The Three Power Pillars Explained 03:56 - 05:03: Managing 190 Clients as the Founder 05:03 - 06:52: Building Systems and Scaling the Team 06:52 - 08:17: How Operations Evolved Without Stopping to Plan 08:17 - 09:36: Bringing on COO Rocco and What Changed 09:36 - 11:27: Time Tracking, Efficiency, and Knowing What to Scale 11:27 - 12:41: Making Complex Systems Digestible for Clients 12:41 - 14:12: What to Automate vs. What to Keep Human 14:12 - 15:40: Retention Strategy and the 30-Day Contract Model 15:40 - 17:27: Why No Long-Term Retainers Actually Works 17:27 - 18:38: Leadership-Led Servicing in Practice 18:38 - 20:06: Why Power Chose A La Carte Over Productized Offers 20:06 - 22:15: Scope Creep, Flexibility, and Transparent Conversations 22:15 - 23:24: Pricing Philosophy and Performance-Based Models 23:24 - 25:44: Due Diligence, Pricing Sweet Spots, and Evolving Packages 25:44 - 26:26: White Glove Service at Scale 26:26 - 28:37: The Power Marketing Internship Program 28:37 - 30:31: Intern Applications, Growth, and National Reach 30:31 - 32:09: How to Build Your Own Internship Program 32:09 - 33:38: Training, Standards, and Raising the Team Up 33:38 - 35:08: Loom Tutorials, Hands-On Oversight, and the Learning System 35:08 - 37:03: Learning by Doing and Embracing Failure 37:03 - 38:08: Final Thoughts and Where to Find Colton 38:08 - 39:10: Outro  Connect with Colton Hower  https://www.linkedin.com/in/coltonhower/  https://www.powermarketingcompany.com/  FOLLOW US Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Levi Clucas: Why Good SEO Has Nothing to Do With Checklists

Levi Clucas, Technical SEO Lead at Footprint Digital and three-time Brighton SEO speaker, joins Austin Willman to break down what good SEO actually looks like in 2025 and beyond. Levi shares why the best SEOs lead with intuition over checklists, how she uses a simple spreadsheet to solve one of the most persistent problems in site migrations, and why the shift toward human-centered content is reshaping everything from local SEO to LLM citations. She also opens up about the soft skills that have defined her decade-long career, including radical transparency with clients, building real relationships across teams, and why saying "I don't know" is one of the most powerful things an SEO can say. If you're worried about where search is heading or what AI means for your career, this episode is a grounding, practical conversation to come back to. Topics covered: - Why good SEO starts with intuition, not a checklist - How local SEO plays by different rules - The Technical Site Map document Levi presented at Brighton SEO - Why communication is the real reason migrations fail - How EEAT and reputation signals have become central to visibility - What LLMs are actually picking up on when they cite businesses - Why team pages are now among the most visited pages on client sites - How to embrace AI without letting it replace your thinking Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings In this episode, we discuss: 00:00 - 01:00 Introduction 01:00 - 03:00 Why Good SEO Is Not a Checklist 03:00 - 05:35 Intuition, Industry Knowledge, and Testing 05:35 - 08:30 Thinking Like Your Client's Customer 08:30 - 11:55 Using AI and Real People for Keyword Research 11:55 - 15:30 The Technical Site Map Explained 15:30 - 18:45 Brighton SEO Talk and Audience Response 18:45 - 21:05 Why Communication Breaks Down in Migrations 21:05 - 24:15 Transparency, Honesty, and Relationship Building 24:15 - 27:20 Confidence, Authority, and Pushing Back Constructively 27:20 - 31:05 How Trust Signals and EEAT Have Shifted 31:05 - 34:20 What LLMs Actually Pick Up On 34:20 - 37:00 Embracing AI Without Losing the Human Element 37:00 - 38:16 Where to Find Levi and Final Thoughts  Connect with Levi Clucas  https://www.linkedin.com/in/leviwilliamsclucas/  https://www.footprintdigital.co.uk/  FOLLOW US Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Jason Berkowitz: How to Win AI Visibility Before Your Competitors Even Know It Exists

Jason Berkowitz, SEO Director & Founder of Break The Web, joins Austin Willman on E-Coffee with Experts to talk about what's actually working in SEO and AI visibility right now, and what most brands are completely missing. Jason shares how his agency built Hugen, an in-house AI LLM visibility tracker that monitors brand mentions and sentiment across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. He breaks down why brand sentiment in AI platforms is becoming one of the most important signals to track, and how his team uses an open source model to score responses at scale across thousands of daily prompts. The conversation covers the real state of off-page SEO and digital PR in the AI era, why certain content formats are now being cited as sources by LLMs, and how e-commerce brands should be thinking about product data, Google Merchant Center, and agentic commerce following Google IO. Jason also opens up about agency operations, how he uses AI as an assistant rather than an advisor, why he tells some prospects to spend their budget on paid ads instead of SEO, and how thought leadership and community have been his most reliable growth channels. If you work in-house at a brand or run an agency, this episode is packed with practical perspective on where SEO is heading and how to stay ahead. Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings In this episode, we discuss: 00:00 - 00:46 Introduction 00:46 - 02:33 Off-Page SEO & Digital PR Strategy 02:33 - 04:35 Building Hugen: The AI Visibility Tracker 04:35 - 06:36 Tracking Brand Sentiment in LLMs 06:36 - 09:51 What Actually Influences AI Sentiment 09:51 - 12:06 AI Over-Reliance & Finding the Balance 12:06 - 15:53 E-Commerce SEO After Google IO 15:53 - 18:23 Optimizing for Humans vs. Algorithms 18:23 - 22:16 Writing Copy That Speaks to Your ICP 22:16 - 25:01 How the Agency Uses AI Internally 25:01 - 27:12 When SEO Works and When It Doesn't 27:12 - 30:27 Managing Client Expectations & Resources 30:27 - 33:21 How Break The Web Finds New Clients 33:21 - 35:05 Thought Leadership & Closing Thoughts  Connect with Jason Berkowitz  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonberkowitzseo/  https://breaktheweb.agency  FOLLOW US Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Manoosh Majdzadeh: How to Stay Visible When Search Belongs to the Algorithm

In this episode of E-Coffee with Experts, Austin sits down with Manoosh Majdzadeh, Head of Marketing at exalate, to unpack what modern B2B marketing actually looks like when the rules keep changing. Manoosh breaks down how brands can unify PPC, organic, PR, and thought leadership under one consistent brand umbrella. She shares why LLM share of voice is the biggest uncontrollable gap marketers face today, and how tools like Profound and Keywords.com only get you so far. She also digs into how Exalate approaches LinkedIn ABM, video SEO, budget allocation, conversion tracking, and building an inbound machine that keeps the pipeline fat across both MQLs and SQLs. The conversation goes deeper than tactics. Manoosh walks through how her team runs experiments, where they find inspiration for campaigns, how they kill tests that are not working, and why listening to your own customers and sales conversations is the most underrated research tool in marketing. She also opens up about internal communication in a remote-first company, what working out loud actually looks like in practice, and why communication is the silent engine behind every high-performing team. If you are a B2B marketer, marketing ops lead, or demand gen professional trying to stay sharp as channels fragment and AI reshapes search, this episode is for you. Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings In this episode, we discuss: 00:00 - 01:00 Introduction 01:00 - 03:30 Marketing Under One Brand Umbrella 03:30 - 05:30 Finding Gaps Across the SERP 05:30 - 07:00 LLM Visibility and Share of Voice 07:00 - 09:00 Where to Allocate Budget 09:00 - 11:00 LinkedIn ABM and Thought Leadership 11:00 - 13:30 Video SEO and Use Case Content 13:30 - 16:00 Entry Offers and Conversion Tracking 16:00 - 18:30 How Experiments Start 18:30 - 20:00 Kill Criteria and Testing Timelines 20:00 - 22:30 Cross-Team Communication 22:30 - 25:00 Working Out Loud in a Remote Team 25:00 - 27:00 Why Communication Drives Performance 27:00 - 29:30 Understanding the Exalate Buyer 29:30 - 31:30 The Core Problem Exalate Solves 31:30 - 34:00 AI Tools and Internal Efficiency 34:00 - 37:00 The Real Cost of Automation 37:00 - 40:00 GPT to Claude and What Sticks 40:00 - 42:15 Final Thoughts and Where to Find Manoosh  Connect with Manoosh Majdzadeh  https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoosh-majdzadeh/  https://exalate.com  FOLLOW US Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./