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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG

[Image Gallery: American Entrepreneur Nick Berry]

Episode Transcript for: Brett Farmiloe: Why PR Is Back and How Earned Media Gets You Cited by AI

00:00 ChatGPT Cut Reddit Citations 80% Overnight 01:25 From Marketing Agency to Featured and HARO 02:16 Why PR Is Back: Earned Media and AI Visibility 03:24 Start With a GEO Audit of What AI Cites 05:31 Earned Media Is a Starting Point, Not a Finish 06:42 Corroboration: Why AI Trusts Repeated Messages 08:20 The Long Tail: 34% of AI Citations Are Small Sites 09:53 Three Steps to PR Without an Agency 12:21 Featured, HARO and Connectively Explained 15:36 PR Workflows That Run 24/7 19:10 Human Pitches Beat AI Pitches 3 to 1 27:05 A Simple AI Visibility Plan for Small Business

[00:00:00] Brett: recently in the last, few weeks, we saw that ChatGPT, reduced its Reddit citations by over 80% overnight. And so all of these Reddit efforts, you know, everything from doing an AMA to commenting on relevant threads to, you know, starting threads and things like that, maybe didn't have as much of an importance as it did, you know, three

[00:00:21] Brett: weeks ago.

[00:00:21]

[00:01:25] Brett: my backstory was I ran a marketing agency for 10 years, and the hardest thing to do was PR in terms of sustainably getting clients placed in the media. And so we launched a platform called Turkle that became featured, [00:01:40] that essentially connected subject matter experts with publishers to create Q&A content.

[00:01:44] Brett: And then we had the opportunity to buy and acquire Hero and, and also Connectively and revive those platforms and thought it was a, a good idea because of the brand equity associated with both of them and said, "Let's go for it." and PR is having their moment right now, so, people are looking to answer the question of: How do I get AI visibility?

[00:02:04] Brett: [00:02:05] And oftentimes earned media is the answer. So, uh, we're definitely seeing a growth across all three brands that, that we operate.

[00:02:11] Nick: so what's changed about PR like why is it at the forefront?

[00:02:16] Brett: PR is having a resurgence right now because people need to get AI visibility. They need to be able to be featured in AI answers and have their small business recommended. And so [00:02:30] there's been multiple different research studies that have been conducted, and, the consistency across all these different studies is that earned media is one of those signals that influences AI answers. And so these AI engines essentially need to look across everything that, that is being cited to generate an answer, and they need trusted sources to be able to have those citations. And oftentimes, earned media is one of those trusted [00:02:55] citations that they rely on. And so how do you get into earned media? You need some public relations type of efforts.

[00:03:01] Nick: Okay. mentioned earned media being one of the signals. What, like, what are the others?

[00:03:07] Brett: you know, there's stuff like company blogs, stuff that you have a single source of truth on. So do you have a press room on your website? Do you have a blog that, um, AI could reference? So I think that there's some owned [00:03:20] channels that you could rely on, and then all the external channels that AI is citing.

[00:03:24] Brett: And I think oftentimes, it depends. It depends on your business. It depends on your website. And I think that the m-most healthy place to start is just an audit to figure out what is actually being cited for the prompts that, that you want to appear for. is it Reddit? Is it forums? Is it actually going to be earned media?

[00:03:42] Brett: And I think that that just varies across the [00:03:45] spectrum.

[00:03:45] Nick: Yeah. and there's also a lot that we just don't know yet, right?

[00:03:48] Brett: Yeah. Yeah. It c- it, it's changing, uh, really frequently, and I think that you're seeing, you know, AI engines, um, experiment. recently in the last, few weeks, we saw that ChatGPT, uh, reduced its Reddit citations by over 80% overnight. And so all of these Reddit efforts, you know, everything from doing an AMA [00:04:10] to commenting on relevant threads to, you know, starting threads and things like that, maybe didn't have as much of an importance as it did, you know, three

[00:04:18] Brett: weeks ago.

[00:04:19] Brett: So I think that, yeah, very early in terms of what's working and what's not. I think you're seeing a lot of experimentation and, and this is true for any marketer. You measure it, you try stuff, you measure it, you double down on what works until it doesn't work, and then you find [00:04:35] something else.

[00:04:35] Nick: Exactly. Yeah, so I'm a big believer in the, earned media really the benefits of it, um, even before AI. But in particular, I think you've been able to see what you're talking about. and so the PR had making its, its comeback, there's plenty of evidence out there for it right now.

[00:04:54] Nick: I think from my perspective, what we've been working on is earned media in and of itself is [00:05:00] good, but not quite enough. Like there's-- You can get a lot more juice out of earned media when you have that source of truth like you're talking about. and so what we do a lot of, of work on trying to, build entities, being clear with, building a, a, a source of truth so the humans and the machines have a place to go to when they want, uh, reliable, up-to-date information on you.

[00:05:24] Nick: [00:05:25] And then when you can layer in that, earned media, then you get so much more bang for your buck.

[00:05:31] Brett: right on the mark. So this is, this is an important point for business owners to understand because traditionally PR was framed as you get in TechCrunch and then that's it. And then people read TechCrunch, and then everyone comes to your website and buys your products or subscribes or whatever. That's not the case in 2026. [00:05:50] PR, now these earned media placements are the starting point. They're not the finish line. And what I mean by starting point is now you're featured in TechCrunch. Now it's what do you do with it? And now you've got to be able to attach some sort of marketing engine to that earned media placement to really amplify and make it worth it.

[00:06:09] Brett: And so some of the different things that you could do is, for example, if you're featured on, on your podcast, [00:06:15] it's go to the press room and have a podcast episode that links out to the podcast. And maybe there's a transcription that you're able to, to take and surface and post on LinkedIn or put it on your Substack or put it on a Medium post. and it's essentially amplifying and taking that content and making it so that it serves the purpose of all the different areas that you do want visibility for. It's that spoke and all these different spokes [00:06:40] that come off of that earned media placement

[00:06:42] Nick: and then there's some benefit to the corroboration, right? So like, you know, we're going to give you, after this episode, a cluster of assets. There's gonna be a profile page for you, the, the person, uh, then there's gonna be an episode page that is dedicated to this interview, and then that's gonna get pushed out on all the podcast platforms.

[00:07:02] Nick: And then there's gonna be another article on, uh, [00:07:05] on our blog that will go up about one or maybe more of the points that we cover here. And so those in, in themselves are valuable to you, but they're even more valuable if they're saying the same things that you say, on your own in other properties, so on your website, for example, um, or on Feature's website, depending on what our topics are.

[00:07:27] Nick: Is that-- does that align with what you're talking about?

[00:07:29] Brett: [00:07:30] Absolutely. So, so it's basically what we're asking is how do AI answers work? And when you think about it, it's like, okay, the more sources that you have say the same thing, the more confident then AI is gonna be to recommend what those sources are saying. And so if your website is saying one thing and my website is saying one thing, and then we've got other websites that are saying the same thing, then that AI answer can be safely [00:07:55] generated.

[00:07:55] Brett: And so to your point, the, the corroboration is if you have multiple sites that are willing to work together to get out a core message, that's essentially what PR is. if you think about the corroborations that now are capable and, and can exist, it's no longer just TechCrunch. It is now a very, very, very long tail of different sites that are able to put out those core messages. And that-- I think that's [00:08:20] really the exciting piece of where media is heading, is if you look at some of the statistics, you know, we recently ran a AI, uh, citation report on, on Featured, and we found that thirty-four percent of all sites that were being cited by, uh, AI have a domain authority of less than forty. Which means that on a scale of one to a hundred, these are sites that you traditionally wouldn't put on a media list. The-- But still, these are [00:08:45] sites that are being cited. And so I think that that just opens up the doors of what you're able to do in terms of who to work with and what message to put out there, and how do you, essentially carve out this win-win for both you as the source, but also as the publisher in that, that outlet

[00:09:00] Nick: So you don't just need to go try to get something up on Forbes. you need to go to what- whoever has content that they're, where they're speaking to your audience. If [00:09:10] they can put you in front of the right people, then it doesn't have to just be only the, like, the big well-known sites

[00:09:16] Brett: Yeah. And I think, you know, going back to that AI citation report, I think another thirty-one percent of all domains that are being cited have a domain authority of above eighty. And so it's really strong in terms of those, those bookends of the really long tail, but then also the really high authority sites. the issue is, is that a lot, a lot of listeners that, that we're [00:09:35] talking to now, they, they might not have the PR budget, they might not have the, the knowledge and the relationships to get into something like Forbes. And so the, the competitive advantage is really there's no-- not a lot of competition in that long tail, and it still has the same effective level of getting featured in, in those tier one publications.

[00:09:53] Brett: So, um, if there's a call to action for a small business owner that's looking to do PR themselves, it's number one, start [00:10:00] with an audit. Figure out what is being cited. Number two, once you have that list, figure out how do you reach out to those, those folks and how do you find those with that win-win, uh, content collaboration. And then number three is actually execute it. Uh, send the pitch, see if it lands, and, you know, go forward with it

[00:10:19] Nick: I'm taking notes, Brett.

[00:10:22] Brett: it's very exciting to, to know that [00:10:25] there's a niche site out there that, you know, is a mom-and-pop blog that talks about paella in Spain, and you're able to pitch that blog, and they don't get as many pitches as journalists do.

[00:10:37] Brett: Uh, you know, a journalist's inbox is a complete nightmare right now in 2026. You-- We could be on this podcast, and they're probably getting a pitch every five minutes,

[00:10:45] Brett: it is a noisy, noisy place. it's not so noisy on that long tail

[00:10:49] Nick: [00:10:50] Yeah. And I think you, you mentioned that they, they're not, inundated with pitches, and also they are speaking your language. They're not just speaking, everybody's language. that specialist site or that niche site, that person who, that you're talking about is, they're looking for more likely, right?

[00:11:07] Nick: they're looking for the message that you're trying to get out there. So I think that's part of the reason why tho- those pitches are more successful.

[00:11:13] Brett: yeah, it's quantity and quality. [00:11:15] So it's, it's balancing out the, the fact is that the quantity isn't as high to that long tail. And at the same time, you've got an opportunity to be very high quality in your pitch. So if you, if you do equipment financing in Scottsdale, and all of a sudden you are pitching blogs that are talking about equipment financing and maybe in a locality, like that's a really cool [00:11:40] pitch.

[00:11:40] Brett: Like that's, that is a match

[00:11:42] Brett: and that's the-- that is a fun place to be, where traditionally it's always like, okay, round peg, square hole type thing, and then it's, you know, now we get these two matches, and that's the exciting piece

[00:11:55] Nick: Right. Yeah, absolutely. c-circle back just a little bit back to you getting into, like, the PR and with these platforms, and, and talk a little bit more [00:12:05] specifically about what you've done. So HARO, you, you went in and, acquired HARO, brought it back, also Connectively, I'm not gonna try to d- to describe the logistics, but it's all integrated into your business, which they feed into Featured. Is that right?

[00:12:21] Brett: Yeah. So let, let me introduce three brands. So we have Featured, Help a Reporter Out, and Connectively. Featured is a copilot for public relations. It's a [00:12:30] place where you could get quoted, cited, and featured in the media. we have Help a Reporter Out, or HARO. It's been around since two thousand and eight.

[00:12:37] Brett: It's a free email newsletter that connects journalists with sources for stories. And you have Connectively, which is a journalist request platform. We connect subject matter experts with publishers to create high-quality content so that sources can increase their visibility and publishers can fill content gaps. And so [00:12:55] collectively, these three brands work really well together, where you could go to helpareporter.com, you could sign up, and you could get three emails a day with journalist requests that you can respond directly to. if you don't wanna get three emails a day, then Connectively essentially is HARO in a platform where you could search across hundreds of different journalist requests. You could, again, reply directly by submitting an answer and getting that answer featured in [00:13:20] different articles. And then Featured is essentially this copilot that not only does journalist requests, but allows you to find podcasts. It allows you to find journalists. It allows you to find speaking opportunities, uh, award submissions,

[00:13:33] Brett: doing GEO audits, sending out a press release.

[00:13:35] Brett: It does everything that you could possibly want to do within public relations.

[00:13:40] Nick: So it's kind of if you-- that's the broader, the one for, uh, you know, if you're trying [00:13:45] to maybe either figure this out or if you already have an idea of what all you wanna do, and it's just everything, Featured is the wa- is the way to go. But you acquired HARO when?

[00:13:54] Nick: '24 or '25?

[00:13:56] Brett: We acquired HARO in April 2025

[00:13:59] Nick: Okay. So yeah, you said it had been, HRO had been around since '08, and I think I would say that a lot of people are familiar with, Help a Reporter Out. I have been for a really long [00:14:10] time, and I'm sure others have. so HRO was gone for a period, and then you got involved, brought that back, Was that the first of the three

[00:14:19] Brett: So we initially had Featured, and Featured operated-- We, we founded the company in January of twenty twenty-two, uh, originally as Turkle, and then rebranded it to Featured in July of twenty twenty-three. that had been kicking and, [00:14:35] and working.

[00:14:35] Brett: brought Harrow back in April of twenty twenty-five, and then we recently revived Connectively, I think it was May twenty-sixth of twenty twenty-six.

[00:14:47] Brett: And so now these three brands are, are pretty new in terms of in the last three months, we've now have, you know, three brands in market

[00:14:54] Nick: Gotcha. Okay. And so now you, depending on, uh, what f- your flavor is, I [00:15:00] suppose, as a, as a business owner, you have several options to serve you, so you can get involved with and, put PR back to use for you. most of us are probably thinking, like you mentioned earlier, how do I get cited by in the past we might have been stuck with the thought that, well, I n- I've gotta go spend money on a PR agency, otherwise, I'm gonna have to basically create another job for myself to do that. And it seems like that's, [00:15:25] that's what you're addressing, is allowing the business owner to put PR w- to work for themselves without turning it into another job for themselves, or without having to go and hire the agency

[00:15:36] Brett: Yeah. So with Featured, you know, we have multiple customers. We have PR agencies that, that use it. We have small business owners that they use it as well, in-house comm teams, and then subject matter experts. For business owners, the thing that we have always heard [00:15:50] is that time is the constraint. Everyone signs up for the gym membership, and then when it comes to month one, they're lifting, they're doing great.

[00:15:58] Brett: Month two, little drop off. By month three, you're lucky if you're utilizing that gym membership. We've seen that time and time again, and it's because your business-- you could sit here today and say, "Hey, let's go get cited by AI. Let's get our PR efforts going." And then by month three, there's some new fire to put [00:16:15] out in your business.

[00:16:15] Brett: And so the unique thing about Featured is it has workflows, and workflows are always on automations that allow you to have PR work for you for twenty-four/seven. And so with workflows, you're able to set stuff up like a journalist request monitor. So you can basically put in a natural language prompt saying, "Hey, I'm a equipment financing company in Scottsdale. Find me journalist requests that [00:16:40] match my business." And that could run as often as you want. It could run three times a day. could run across multiple different platforms, and it can alert you via email or Slack when there's a relevant opportunity to respond to. So now you don't have to open HARO three times a day.

[00:16:53] Brett: You don't have to go to HARO and Connectively and every other journalist request platform that's out there. You can just set your monitor and then act on the stuff that makes sense for your business. And

[00:17:03] Brett: so that, that's the big thing with [00:17:05] Featured is we're saving a lot of time that is typically spent monitoring. Also drafting a, an initial pitch, that there's an ability to do that within Featured, where on a single click you can draft an initial pitch, which is a great starting point that you can now refine and craft to make it your own. but it's a huge time saver

[00:17:24] Nick: Yeah, it is. I'm using Featured… I, I was using Featured b- actually before we [00:17:30] met. for, uh, the, uh, let's see, filters for byline articles, journalists, GEO, AI, visibility, there's one other

[00:17:37] Brett: You can find creators, you can find creators across TikTok,

[00:17:40] Brett: YouTube, uh, and Instagram, and I think there's like over, I don't know, there's like one point five million creators that are full-time that are, uh, in that database. There's over eight hundred and fourteen thousand podcasts that are [00:17:55] in the database. I think it's about sixty-five thousand journalists that are, that are in our, in our database that we're referencing. We're-- We just added, I think, a huge list of publications on Medium to pitch, over five hundred publications. We're adding Substack publications. We're adding independent bookstores for uh, book PR agencies. There's a lot of different use cases that exist

[00:18:19] Brett: within [00:18:20] PR, and our job is to essentially fill all of those gaps.

[00:18:23] Nick: Yeah, I love it. And it's-- I mean, it is as handy as what you described you know, whatever frequency I want, I get my reports. It's easy to scan through. It's showing me exactly what I need. It will do a quick, like, draft so then I can go in and, look at that, and it's pretty easy to take it and get it submitted from there.

[00:18:40] Nick: Now, a lot of that is AI-driven, right? So it's gonna [00:18:45] use what it-- I've told it about me and compare that to these opportunities, and it's gonna say, "Here's a good match. Nick, here's what you could submit to them that they would find interesting." that's an AI draft.

[00:18:57] Nick: I know that you guys have a ton of data on this. nobody wants to have AI slop drafts fired at them how is that working? How Are the AI submissions received? What's effective? Tell me about how [00:19:10] all that works.

[00:19:10] Brett: Yeah. So every single pitch that goes through Connectively and goes through Help a Reporter Out, it has an AI detection, uh, ran on it. So we partner with Pangram, and we've ran over one point five million pitches through, through Pangram for AI detection. We found that twenty-one percent of all of those pitches are a hundred percent AI-generated. And [00:19:35] on the other side of the people who receive these, uh, pitches, which are journalists, we see that thirty-five percent of all journalists opt out entirely of receiving AI pitches. And so when a journalist makes a request, there's a little button that's unchecked by default that says, "No AI pitches." And when they click that button, they will not receive any pitch that's been flagged by, uh, our system for, for AI. what [00:20:00] happens on the, the source side of things is if you're using a hundred percent AI to generate your pitch, we'll send you a little note saying, "Hey, uh, your pitch was not delivered. It was flagged by AI for these reasons, and we would encourage you to resubmit, recraft it, and then, you know, send that back out to the journalist so that your pitch lands."

[00:20:20] Brett: And so that's, that's what happens on the source side of things and from the journalist side of things. [00:20:25] But, uh, we also see that human-written pitches are three times more successful than AI-generated pitches. Again, what we mean by that is we looked at the, the data, one out of ten AI-written pitches landed and resulted in a publication, and one out of three human-written pitches resulted in a publication.

[00:20:46] Brett: So, there's value in human insights. There's value in [00:20:50] human experience. That's why journalists are posting to our platforms to get connected with that authentic thing that they can't get otherwise from working with AI.

[00:21:00] Nick: the whole wave that's come on and, you know, how do I compete? What, how do I stand out? Uh, like it's all coming back to you have to have a perspective on something, and then you have to be willing to share it. And the willing to share it part's easy.

[00:21:14] Nick: Well, I, [00:21:15] I don't know if I should say easy. Maybe it's not easy for everybody. but that's a, a decision that you're making, right? but you've gotta have some unique perspective. I think there's been kind of an epiphany among a lot of business owners, marketers, probably even beyond that, that, oh yeah, I'm gonna have to actually say something if I want it to be heard

[00:21:33] Brett: So that's the founding premise of our company, is essentially that small business owners have an abundance of [00:21:40] knowledge to share. They just struggle in finding a place to share it. And you'd be very, very surprised at how knowledgeable people are about their business and how unaware they are about how knowledgeable they are about their business.

[00:21:54] Brett: So the willingness to share, I actually find is like one of the hardest things to do. The willingness to share is constrained by essentially, you're too close to the, to [00:22:05] the sun in this of, "Oh, well, that's not interesting because it's not that interesting to me." But the reality is that it's really interesting to journalists and publishers that might not be within your business working on it day-to-day. And so the things that I am going through myself in this, it's like number one, figuring out who your core audience is, who, who actually cares about your, your messaging. What are [00:22:30] the unanswered questions that those buyers are asking AI? What are they going to AI to look for answers for? And then how do you now position yourself to say, "I have the answer. Here is the answer." And now how do you actually share that answer in an interesting way that's gonna connect back with your buyer? So I feel like dumbing it down and trying to really get back to square one of who the buyer is, [00:22:55] what the, the question they're asking is, and then how do you come up with the answer. That is the job to be done for most small business owners.

[00:23:03] Nick: Mm-hmm. and it doesn't have to be, doesn't have to be perfect to get it out there, right? It's your three steps that you gave earlier, and the last one was act on it. Like step three of the plan is do the plan. you have to get started doing somewhere, right? Get it out there and, and refine as you go [00:23:20] and iterate on it

[00:23:21] Brett: Everyone always just gets in their own, own headspace. I have probably about five to 20 calls a week with customers just to talk to them about how they use the product. And when you're in your own silo and you're thinking about all these different solutions that you could do for your product, your solutions are probably pretty complex because you're so far removed from the day-to-day use of the [00:23:45] product. I can't tell you how many screen shares I've been on that on my end I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm gonna jump into this demo, and we're gonna talk about this, this complex CRM that we're going to think about launching, and we're gonna ask for feedback." We don't even get past the login. the, the how do I log in is one of the steps that I have to encounter on, on demos.

[00:24:07] Brett: And you're seeing stuff like, "Oh, well, I have my boss's [00:24:10] login, and she's not available right now, so how do I use Featured?" And so it's like, oh, let's start where the customer is, no matter what. And if you start where the customer is, now you can start to actually create content and answer their questions that are gonna be most effective to move them forward

[00:24:27] Nick: Yeah. you're having a lot of conversations with your users. You've always done that, right? Like, that's kind of always been a thing for you?

[00:24:33] Brett: Yeah. I mean, so [00:24:35] even going back to when I was first exiting college, I majored in accounting, started a job as an auditor, and e-ended up traveling across the country in an RV two consecutive summers interviewing people about their career paths. And so spoke with over three hundred people across sixteen thousand miles in thirty-eight states, and, you know, learned many things, but one of the things that I really learned about myself is I love to ask questions. I love I love to ask questions, and I [00:25:00] love to listen, and that hasn't ever stopped in the last twenty years, and now the people that I s-spend time with are, are customers and are users, and I like to ask them questions about: Where's the product falling short? Where is it nailing it for you? What else do you wish that, this product had? And then being able to now use the powers of AI to say, "All right. Well, let me go create a prototype in the next thirty minutes. Let me send you this proto- a working prototype that you [00:25:25] can now test drive, and let me know if it's spot on." As an entrepreneur, the era that we're living in is just so incredible.

[00:25:31] Brett: It's-- You're

[00:25:31] Brett: able to iterate and find product market fit so fast, and that's a really powerful thing. But again, to point three, act on it and execute it, you gotta be able to ask the right questions, you gotta be able to listen, and you gotta be able to actually do it

[00:25:47] Nick: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's, for [00:25:50] somebody like you described where you like to ask questions and you like to listen and, and you mentioned like the job to be done, that's kind of a superpower, the combination of those things. You can get into a conversation with someone pretty quickly and determine like, here's the problem that they're trying to solve, and as soon as you know that you can have a beat on that, solving it gets much easier.

[00:26:09] Nick: With all of the technology and the resources that we have, you can, you can say, "I'll be right back," and [00:26:15] come back with something that it addresses their issue. that's a rarity and it's definitely an advantage

[00:26:20] Brett: it's just like the thing that, you know, every good advisor, from Eric Ries, who's one of our advisors, the author of The, The Lean Startup, to Steve Blank, who did the business model canvas. All of them say, "Get out of the building, get out of your own headspace, go talk to your customers. Figure out the value [00:26:40] proposition, figure out who the customer actually is, make that match between a value proposition and your ideal customer," and that is product market fit. That is your job as a founder. That is your job as a business owner when you're creating something new to get out of the building, to go speak with whoever it is that you're looking to serve, validate that that's actually the correct customer that you're looking to serve with the right value proposition, and then you attach the product to it

[00:27:04] Brett: I think [00:27:05] that the, the question that any small business owner has for themselves is: how do I get in front of my customers? And the answer to that question of how do I get in front of my customers increasingly goes back to the AI summaries, the AI answers that are existing. And so if I were to have a clear call to action for a small business owner today, I think that [00:27:30] it's, number one, I'd probably go to featured.com and do a GEO audit and type in your website, type in whatever keyword or prompt that you're looking to get visibility for and see what comes back. And then step two is, all right, now that I see what's being cited by AI and where my competitors are being cited, what do I do? What's the right step for me to be able to increase [00:27:55] this, this visibility? there's a lot of nuance to that. It's either saying, "Hey, maybe I have this content gap on my website that I'm not answering the right questions, and I need to go cr-create content on my website and take that content and be able to now repurpose it on all these other websites and podcasts and, and whatnot that, um, also would be interested in that, content." And then three is probably measure it and make sure that what you're doing is [00:28:20] actually working. And for a small business owner, this is gonna be in calls like, "Hey, how did you hear about us?" "Oh, I found you on ChatGPT." Great. Something's working. Let me double down and, and keep with that. So I think it's a really confusing time that doesn't need to be that confusing. And I think it just starts with, you know, a simple audit, measure what works and then, you know, keep iterating and keep experimenting.

[00:28:42] Nick: Yeah, that's great. Well, I think you've got a, [00:28:45] a really powerful and valuable tool for, business owners, which is great. So it is a confusing time. there are so many variables. It's like everything is in flux. And what I see that you've done with Featured, is bundle up some of those variables and say, "Okay, you don't have to figure out all these things.

[00:29:03] Nick: if this is the outcome that you're looking for, you can just use this," and it kind of like compartmentalizes. It takes a lot [00:29:10] of the stuff you have to figure out or filter through, out of the e-equation. Just lets you, to shortcut maybe to some more of the outcome that you're looking for, which is, visibility

[00:29:20] Nick: Yeah,

[00:29:21] Brett: absolutely. It's, it's taken something that's complex that business owners don't really know a ton about, which is public relations. It's always kind of been this black box of, "Oh, I don't know how it works, and so I'm gonna go hire an [00:29:35] agency, or I'm gonna go hire someone full-time to-- that know-knows how it works to do it." And I think that the time that we're living in, you know, Featured is almost like a ChatGPT for PR. You're able to just show up as you

[00:29:47] Nick: Угу

[00:29:48] Brett: type in anything, and then you're gonna fuddle around until you choose your own adventure, and you get to the right place, and there's a clear path for you to act on. And that's really empowering because,

[00:29:58] Brett: again, [00:30:00] the asset that a small business owner has is knowledge, knowledge about their business. The gap that exists with publishers and journalists that they're always trying to get connected with is a knowledgeable subject matter expert. So if you can fill that gap, you can do PR for your business

[00:30:17] Nick: Yeah. that's a great way to describe it so PR has always been at the top of the list of the things that we know we need more of and we've not had [00:30:25] success with really. You know, the people who have had success get it, and then there's everybody else. And so now there's something where I can just show up as I am and like know what I know, and this is gonna help like channel that to the people who need to find that information.

[00:30:43] Brett: It's incredible. And it's like that for PR, it's like that for virtually anything that you didn't know about. now [00:30:50] the playing field is, equal or getting more equal, which is really exciting for someone who's working hard every single day in their business and grinding and accumulating knowledge, and now you have a moment to shine

[00:31:03] Nick: That's right. Yep. If you felt like you were lagging behind or, the table or deck was stacked against you or whatever, like, this is one of those opportunities where the deck's kinda getting reset. you can gain some ground. There's a [00:31:15] tremendous upside that's available to everybody who's willing to, get in there and try to figure out how to use it.

[00:31:19] Nick: So awesome, Brett. Man, uh, this is great. Congratulations. this is a, a really cool story, um, a really cool tool that you guys have put together. but I appreciate you jumping on and taking the time to share the information, and I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with all of your, brands, moving forward

[00:31:36] Brett: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being a customer

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