Duct Tape Marketing

08/10/2026

A lead goes quiet after the first click, or a referral source slows down for no clear reason, and most business owners chalk it up to bad luck. It's usually a leak in the customer journey, and AI has changed where those leaks show up.

Join Duct Tape Marketing CEO Sara Nay for a free 45-minute session on August 13 to find where yours is breaking.

👉 https://pages.ducttapemarketing.com/rethinking-the-customer-journey/

08/07/2026

An event planner needed a speaker. She opened ChatGPT, typed in her criteria, and got a short list. Sara Nay made the cut.

By the time Sara got on the call, the planner already knew her topics, audience fit, and heard testimonials from past clients.

That's happening in more industries than you'd think. Sara and I talk through what your homepage, reviews, and content need to look like if you want to be the name AI hands over.

Catch the full episode → https://ducttapemarketing.com/ai-is-rewriting-how-customers-choose-your-business/

08/01/2026

Mark your calendar. Feb 24-26. Hilton San Diego Bayfront.

Vistara brings agency owners together for three days to work through AI, side by side, comparing notes on what's working right now.

2026 sold out with a waitlist. 250+ agency leaders in the room, and 99% said they're coming back.

Flash Sale pricing ends August 5. It won't be this low again.

Register here: https://joinvistara.com/?utm_source=Partnership&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_campaign=2027_Thunderclap&utm_term=duct-tape

Who's in for San Diego? Drop it in the comments.

Vistara AI is an in-person event for agency owners looking to build, sell, and scale AI-powered services inside their agencies.

07/31/2026

Everybody chases customer referrals, and it makes sense, they're the obvious source. But a real goldmine sits somewhere most people never think to look: other businesses already serving your same ideal client.

A good customer might send you 2 or 3 people over the years, but the right partner could send you 100. John Jantsch breaks it down on this week's solo episode.

Listen to the full thing now → https://ducttapemarketing.com/the-marketing-channel-ai-cant-commoditize/

What's one business out there that already serves your ideal client?

07/31/2026

No small business can outspend Coca-Cola.

But new beverage brands keep showing up... Protein enriched, probiotic, whatever's trending.

First thing I think: what the h*ll is a probiotic beverage?

That question is where thought leadership starts. You explain it before your competitor's ad budget ever gets the chance.

Peter Winick and I dug into this concept on the podcast. Full episode now live → https://ducttapemarketing.com/ai-can-create-content-it-cant-create-thought-leadership/

What's the first question people ask about your product? Drop it below.

07/29/2026

Most agency owners can't answer this question honestly.

Jason Swenk of Agency Mastery joined the podcast to talk about picking a niche, and his test cuts straight through the noise: if you had to work for free, who would you choose, and what would you do for them?

Catch Swenk's full episode from the vault → https://ducttapemarketing.com/5-stages-from-operator-to-owner/

07/25/2026

88% of marketers are using AI right now. Most of them are doing it backwards.

That's the starting point of a conversation Duct Tape Marketing CEO Sara Nay had with Corey Harlock on the KeyHire Small Business Podcast.

Her take: AI is a great tool for drafting and repurposing, but it can't replace the strategy work that has to happen first, knowing your ideal client, defining where the business is headed, and building messaging that actually sets you apart.

Skip that groundwork and AI just produces faster versions of content nobody remembers.

Sara also shared how one client tracked their marketing properly and found $40,000 in wasted spend in just three months.

Have you ever found out a marketing channel wasn't working after you'd already spent months (or dollars) on it? Tell us about it below.

Listen to the full episode:
→ Apple: https://loom.ly/Wsb7u-k
→ Spotify: https://loom.ly/XRYWQYE
→ YouTube: https://loom.ly/S2vHt5o

07/24/2026

An uncomfortable truth: Your customer does not care about your product. They care about their problem.

Snyder learned that lesson the hard way after two years of sales calls where prospects loved the product and still walked away. The moment that changed things was a phone call where a prospect candidly told him he didn't have any need for what Snyder was selling, but he'd happily pay for something else.

That call led to Snyder's Pull framework, and the part that stuck with me is this: pain points are not priorities. A prospect can rate their pain a 9 out of 10 and still never buy, because the real question is whether that problem has become something they can no longer avoid.

So next time a sales call stalls out, try asking why they took the call in the first place. You'll usually learn more from that one answer than from the whole pitch.

What's a pain point you've seen a customer live with for years without ever fixing it? Tell me in the comments.

Catch the full episode → https://ducttapemarketing.com/stop-selling-to-people-who-were-never-going-to-buy/

07/23/2026

Here's the uncomfortable truth Paul Roetzer shared with me on the podcast this week.

Most AI transformation efforts fail before they start, and it's not a technology problem. It's a leadership problem.

Roetzer's take: if the CEO hasn't personally dug into what this technology can do to the org structure, the people, the products, the markets, the whole effort stalls out. No amount of software licenses fixes that gap.

Is AI strategy coming from the top at your company, or is it more of a "figure it out yourself" situation right now?

Tell me in the comments. Catch the full conversation with Paul Roetzer here → https://ducttapemarketing.com/ai-strategy-starts-with-leadership-not-technology/

07/17/2026

Ever get an objection that makes no sense, no matter how good your logic is?

My guest this week, social psychologist Owen Fitzpatrick, calls what's causing these objections "inner propaganda". It's the story someone has been telling themselves for years, and it's already decided the answer before you opened your mouth.

Fitzpatrick's fix: make the idea feel right, make it fit in with who they believe they are, and only then bring the logic. Skip the first two steps and you're arguing with a story you can't even see.

Where have you run into someone's inner propaganda lately?

Full episode with Owen Fitzpatrick is out now → https://ducttapemarketing.com/why-great-leaders-change-feelings-before-minds/