Tomal Syed-Aguirre: The Real Cost of Hiring the Wrong Marketing Partner

How This SEO Agency Founder Sold to Omnicom and Changed Everything

In this episode, Lisa Paasche, Founder at EKTE Vision, breaks down the exact pivot she made in 2015 that transformed her agency from a low-margin link-building shop into a creative powerhouse landing coverage on BBC, The Guardian, CNN, and even the Tonight Show. She shares why she made 40% of her team redundant to move forward, how she hired people with no industry experience on purpose, and what buyers like Omnicom are actually looking for when they acquire an agency. Lisa and Austin also go deep on leadership, transparency, and what it really takes to build a team that stays. From open-book financials to involving staff in hiring decisions, Lisa's approach to running a business is as unconventional as it is effective. They also discuss the current AI opportunity in SEO, why Digital PR is more important than ever for LLM visibility, and the neuroscience behind why founders burn out and what to do about it. Whether you are trying to grow your agency, prep for an exit, or just get out of your own way, this episode is packed with hard-won lessons from someone who has done it all, including a brief detour into stand-up comedy. 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 & How Lisa Repurposes Her Podcasts 01:00 - 02:30: Using Opus Clip to Turn Episodes Into Short-Form Content 02:30 - 04:00: Lisa's Background & Getting Into SEO in 2005 04:00 - 05:30: The Algorithm Updates That Changed Everything 05:30 - 07:10: The Bold Pivot That Transformed the Agency 07:10 - 08:30: Landing Coverage on BBC, The Guardian, and the Tonight Show 08:30 - 10:00: How Lisa and Austin Met at SEO Week 10:00 - 11:30: The Hardest Decision — Making 40% of the Team Redundant 11:30 - 13:00: Why Lisa Hired for Mindset Over Experience 13:00 - 14:30: The Chiropractor Story — Finding Talent in Unexpected Places 14:30 - 16:00: Enthusiasm, Grit, and the Three Keys to Success 16:00 - 17:30: Why Big Creative Campaigns Still Win 17:30 - 19:00: The Roger Bannister Effect and Belief in What's Possible 19:00 - 20:30: Balancing Virality With Niche and Specific Content 20:30 - 22:00: Why Lisa Always Knew She Wanted to Sell 22:00 - 23:30: What Acquirers Are Actually Looking For 23:30 - 25:30: De-Risking Your Agency Before a Sale 25:30 - 27:30: Open-Book Financials and Teaching Your Team How Business Works 27:30 - 29:30: Transparent Pay Structures and Involving Staff in Decisions 29:30 - 31:30: The Employee Who Stayed Because of Trust, Not Money 31:30 - 33:30: What Is EKTE and Why Lisa Built It 33:30 - 35:30: Why Founders Lose Steam and How to Get It Back 35:30 - 37:30: Hiring a COO and Getting Out of Your Own Way 37:30 - 39:00: The Neuroscience Behind Founder Burnout 39:00 - 40:30: Why Founders Are Almost Always Doing Too Much 40:30 - 42:00: The Importance of Space, Nature, and Slowing Down 42:00 - 43:30: Authenticity as the Foundation of Everything 43:30 - 45:50: Where to Find Lisa and Free Consultation Offer Book a free 1-hr session with Lisa Paasche: https://lisapaaschecoaching.youcanbook.me/  Connect with Lisa Paasche  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisapaasche/  https://ekte-vision.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./

Tomal Syed-Aguirre: The Real Cost of Hiring the Wrong Marketing Partner

In this episode, Tomal Syed-Aguirre, Founder of Soul Spaces, joins us to talk about what it really takes to build a relationship-first commercial real estate business in London. From ditching transactional deal culture to navigating volatile pipelines and experimenting with every marketing channel imaginable, Tomal shares the honest, unfiltered side of running a founder-led business in 2026. Soul Spaces was built on a simple but powerful idea: bring humanity back to an industry that had lost it. Tomal and his co-founder Joe saw a corporate real estate world that was cold and transactional, and decided to do things differently. In this episode, we go deep on what that actually looks like in practice, from the way they onboard clients and tailor office recommendations, to how they think about long-term contracts versus month-to-month flexibility. We also get into the real challenges of founder-led branding on LinkedIn, why Tomal deleted Instagram because he could no longer tell what was real, how AI is both exciting and frustratingly hard to implement in a still-manual industry, and why he believes the answer to modern outreach might simply be picking up the phone. If you are a founder trying to grow a service business, stay authentic in a noisy digital world, and build something that actually lasts, 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 - 02:10: Why Six-Month Contracts Beat Month-to-Month 02:10 - 04:05: How Soul Spaces Tailors Office Recommendations 04:05 - 06:15: The Story Behind Soul Spaces and Why They Started It 06:15 - 08:35: Founder-Led Branding and the LinkedIn Authenticity Challenge 08:35 - 11:10: Meme Culture, Creativity, and Finding Your Brand Voice 11:10 - 13:45: What Has Actually Worked in Outbound and Business Development 13:45 - 15:05: Is Commercial Real Estate Seasonal 15:05 - 18:20: Deal Cycles, Pipeline Volatility, and Balancing Quick vs Long-Term Clients 18:20 - 21:25: How Soul Spaces Is Adopting AI in a Still-Manual Industry 21:25 - 24:15: AI Fatigue, Fake Content, and the Return to Human Connection 24:15 - 26:10: If You Had to Strip the Business Down to One Thing 26:10 - 28:00: Where Soul Spaces Would Invest if Revenue Doubled Overnight 28:00 - 31:32: Where to Find Soul Spaces and Closing Thoughts  Connect with Tomal Syed-Aguirre  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomal-syed-aguirre/  https://soulspaces.london/  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./

Will Palmer: How This Legal SEO Founder Uses AI to Cut Churn and Win More Clients

In this episode, Will Palmer, Founder at Growth Lab, breaks down how his agency uses CallRail data and language models to surface attribution gaps that law firms never knew existed, and how that intelligence turned a flight-risk client into one who doubled their ad spend. He explains the three-legged marketing system he uses for every law firm: a converting website, targeted traffic, and airtight lead management. Will also shares how Growth Lab is building MCP servers and internal automations to drive better margins and lower client churn, why traditional SEO KPIs like keyword rankings no longer tell the full story, and how he publishes quarterly AI legal search reports to stay ahead of the market for his clients and team. Beyond strategy, Will talks openly about leading a fully remote team, why they insist on work-life balance as a performance strategy, and what his warning label as a founder would say. 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 - 03:35: AI Operations and the Search Landscape 03:35 - 06:10: Organizing First-Party Data for Clients 06:10 - 08:35: Attribution, CallRail, and the Legal Consumer Journey 08:35 - 10:55: KPIs That Actually Matter for Law Firms 10:55 - 13:20: The Three-Legged Marketing Stool 13:20 - 15:15: Lead Management and Strategic Partnerships 15:15 - 19:30: Leadership and Remote Agency Culture 19:30 - 22:20: How AI Changes the Way the Team Works 22:20 - 25:10: Feedback Loops and Quarterly Search Reports 25:10 - 28:00: Thought Leadership and the Visionary Role 28:00 - 30:20: The Entrepreneurial Artist and His Warning Label 30:20 - 31:43: Closing thoughts  Connect with Will Palmer  https://www.linkedin.com/in/wpkc/  http://www.growthlabseo.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./

David Reske: What Most Companies Still Get Wrong About SEO

In this episode of E-coffee with Experts, David Reske, Founder and CEO, Nowspeed, Inc. shares how he has navigated every major shift in SEO and digital marketing since 2004, why most agencies fail to scale beyond founder-led growth, and how NowSpeed built a proprietary AI SEO agent that compresses months of work into 15 minutes. David breaks down his approach to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), why brand authority now matters more than raw link volume, and how companies need to restructure their content strategy to stay visible across both Google and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. He also shares the structural mistakes agency founders make when trying to grow, how to evaluate new marketing tools without falling into rabbit holes, and his single most important advice for anyone starting out in marketing or entrepreneurship today. If you work in SEO, run a digital agency, or are building a business in the AI era, this conversation is packed with practical insight from someone who has seen it all. 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 - 02:25: David's Journey and NowSpeed's Core Services 02:25 - 04:50: Why Most Agencies Fail to Scale 04:50 - 07:25: Evaluating New Marketing Tools Without Getting Distracted 07:25 - 09:25: The AI SEO Agent and the 3-Day SEO Sprint 09:25 - 12:10: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Explained 12:10 - 14:20: Schema and Building Websites for AI Systems 14:20 - 16:45: Link Building Evolved Into Business Authority 16:45 - 19:00: Restructuring Top-of-Funnel Content for Zero-Click Search 19:00 - 20:25: Aligning SEO With Long B2B Sales Cycles 20:25 - 21:35: One Piece of Advice for Marketers and Entrepreneurs 21:35 - 23:50: Rapid Fire Round 23:50 - 25:43: Closing Thoughts  Connect with David Reske  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidreske/  https://nowspeed.com/seo/  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./

Alex Wade: Why Internal Linking Still Wins in the Age of AI Search

In this episode, Alex Wade, Head of SEO at Broadplace, joins Austin Willman to break down what actually moves the needle in search today and what SEOs are getting dangerously wrong as AI reshapes the industry. Alex brings over 15 years of experience to a candid conversation about how SEO is evolving, why internal linking remains one of the most underrated technical foundations, and how AI tools like Claude are changing the day-to-day workflow for search professionals. They cover how to use AI for keyword gap analysis, content scaling, and competitor research without losing the human quality that search engines still reward. Alex also shares his three-step diagnostic process for auditing any website, explains why organic traffic as a KPI is dying, and makes the case that GEO is not a standalone discipline but an arm of SEO. Whether you are an in-house SEO, agency owner, or founder trying to understand where to invest in search, this episode gives you a grounded, practical framework for navigating what comes next. 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: Is Google's Search Monopoly Coming to an End? 03:30 - 07:00: How Alex Uses AI and Claude for SEO Work 07:00 - 09:15: Training LLMs With Client Data and Competitor Research 09:15 - 11:20: Voice Search: Relevant or Overhyped? 11:20 - 13:20: Why Organic Traffic as a KPI Is Dying 13:20 - 15:00: SEO, Paid, and Email: The Shift Toward Channel Integration 15:00 - 18:15: Alex's 3-Step Diagnostic Process for Any Website 18:15 - 20:05: Using Multiple Tools to Triangulate SEO Data 20:05 - 24:10: Technical SEO, Schema, and Internal Linking for LLM Visibility 24:10 - 26:00: What Is Satellite Content and Why Does It Matter 26:00 - 28:40: What SEOs Are Still Getting Wrong in 2025 28:40 - 31:00: The Skill Sets That Will Define the Next Generation of SEOs 31:00 - 31:35: Where to Find Alex and Closing Thoughts  Connect with Alex Wade  https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadealex/  http://broadplace.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./