How to Build a Digital Footprint That Gets You Chosen Before the First Conversation
In today’s market, getting found is no longer enough. If your digital footprint doesn’t build trust, clients will keep looking—even after they find you.
Your digital footprint isn’t just your website. It’s the total picture of how you show up across Google, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs, and AI search results. And whether you realize it or not, that footprint is making the decision for your clients before you ever speak to them.
This is the shift from visibility → to credibility → to selection.
Why Your Digital Footprint Actually Determines Whether You Get Hired
Most professionals think: “If I show up in search, I win.”
But clients don’t choose based on presence.
They choose based on confidence.
Your digital footprint acts as your decision support system:
It answers questions before they’re asked
It reduces uncertainty
It creates familiarity before contact
If your footprint is thin, inconsistent, or unclear, the client experiences friction—and friction leads to hesitation.
And hesitation leads to: “I’ll keep looking.”
The Trust Gap: Why Most Professional Marketing Fails
There’s a massive gap in professional services marketing:
Marketing focuses on being seen
Clients need help deciding
That gap is credibility.
Your content is not just information—it’s trust infrastructure.
When your content:
explains clearly
stays consistent
reinforces your expertise
You stop competing… and start becoming the obvious choice.
SEO vs. AEO vs. GEO: The New Rules of Being Found AND Chosen
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – Getting Found
SEO helps you appear in search results using:
keywords
structure
metadata
But visibility alone does not create trust.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) – Reducing Uncertainty
AEO ensures your content:
directly answers real client questions
matches search intent
is structured for AI retrieval
This is where decisions start to happen.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) – Becoming the Source
GEO positions your content to:
be cited by AI systems
appear across multiple platforms
reinforce authority everywhere
This is where credibility compounds.
Simple model:
SEO = Seen
AEO = Understood
GEO = Chosen
How to Build a Digital Footprint That Converts (Not Just Attracts)
1. Create Content That Explains, Not Just Promotes
Clients are not looking for slogans.
They are looking for clarity.
Focus on:
“What does this mean for me?”
“What happens if I do nothing?”
“What should I expect next?”
2. Be Specific—General Content Gets Ignored
Generic content creates doubt.
Specific content creates trust.
Instead of: “Estate planning tips”
Write: “How estate planning changes when you’re caring for aging parents”
Specificity signals expertise.
3. Build Multiple Paths to the Same Conclusion
Think like a network, not a single post. Create:
blog posts
LinkedIn insights
YouTube explanations
Google Business updates
All reinforcing the same message:
“You understand the problem—and how to solve it.”
4. Use AI to Scale Consistency (Not Replace Insight)
AI should help you:
publish consistently
structure content properly
optimize for SEO, AEO, and GEO
But the thinking must still be yours.
5. Eliminate Decision Friction
Every piece of content should answer:
What you do
Who you help
How you solve the problem
What happens next
If a client has to “figure it out,” they won’t.
The Real Takeaway: Your Digital Footprint Is Your Pre-Sale Conversation
By the time a client contacts you, one of two things is true:
They’ve already chosen you
They’re still comparing you
Your digital footprint determines which one.
If your content:
builds familiarity
reduces uncertainty
reinforces expertise
You don’t need to “sell.”
You’ve already been chosen.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Your digital footprint is everything a client sees online about you—website, content, profiles, and AI search results. It acts as your trust layer before contact.
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SEO helps you get found, AEO helps you answer questions, and GEO ensures your content is recognized and reused by AI systems as a trusted source.
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Focus on clarity, consistency, and explanation-based content. Reduce uncertainty so clients feel confident choosing you before the first conversation.
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Andrew Colsky (00:12)
Welcome to Be Picked, the podcast for busy professionals who are trying to build and maintain their practices. I'm your host, Andrew Colsky. Today we are talking with Hussain Shah, who is the founder and principal of MarCom 247, which is a digital marketing consultancy. So Hussain, welcome to the show.
Hussain Shah (00:33)
Thank you, Andrew. I really appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me. Great to be here. I appreciate the audience. Thanks so much. my name
Andrew Colsky (00:43)
Yeah, well, yeah, please.
Hussain Shah (00:46)
is Hussain Shah. I've spent about 20 years and I got the gray hairs to show for it in digital marketing, specifically in enterprise and government spaces where the sales cycle is long, trust is everything, and buying decisions are never made on impulse. We go through.
Andrew Colsky (01:03)
Yeah, yeah, and I mean you said the magic word in there trust and trust is such an incredibly important part of a hiring decision And I think a lot of people, you know Don't recognize how important that is when it comes to their digital footprint so,
Hussain Shah (01:21)
Absolutely.
Andrew Colsky (01:21)
you know The the whole concept here behind this podcast is about long-term
growth and sustaining your practice. We're not interested in those short quick wins because those are nice, but that doesn't build a successful practice.
Hussain Shah (01:38)
is that.
Andrew Colsky (01:39)
And in order to build a successful practice, in my opinion, credibility is such an important piece. So I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you agree, disagree, why or why not?
Hussain Shah (01:50)
100, 110%. So I think there's a huge credibility gap in professional services marketing. I mean, it's a lot of it is basically we're not selling a widget a box. It's we're selling our professional expertise. So yeah, absolutely. So the moment from when someone is Googling a lawyer or a consultant to actually picking up the phone, there's a mile of what I call quite due diligence.
So once I see it, they go through your LinkedIn, they go through your digital footprint, they look through your content. That's where this works and that's where that credibility gap gets filled or not filled.
Andrew Colsky (02:28)
Well,
just from that statement alone, I bet several listeners just got this big drop in their stomach because they're thinking to themselves, what digital footprint? Well, I don't have anything online.
Hussain Shah (02:39)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (02:40)
I don't even know where to start to put stuff online.
Hussain Shah (02:44)
And unfortunately that's true. And so if we think about like the content to go online, I think there is transformation that has happened in the last several years and it's really, has really accelerated in last, I say, six months to
a year where content for professional services now, for professional services is now trust infrastructure. It's not really content marketing, it's trust infrastructure.
I mean, think of it this way, the content you put online, it's basically working 24 seven, whether it's your LinkedIn profile or your blog posts or whatnot. The question is, has your firm or your company coached that content to get the job because it's working 24 hours interviewing for positions. Yeah, absolutely. You have to build that content infrastructure and treat it as such.
Andrew Colsky (03:35)
Mm-hmm. So, so, you know, I spend a lot of time myself online looking at the types of questions that attorneys, for example, ask about marketing their practice. And I read a lot of things on Reddit and different forums on the internet. And I consistently see people, you know, trying to be helpful. And the response that I see over and over and over again is
you got to have good SEO, good SEO, good SEO. get good SEO and the whole world is going to be beating a path to your door. And while SEO is certainly important, I'm not so sure that I agree that the world is going to be the path to your door. Can you kind of give us a perspective, especially today, SEO versus AI search and all the different types of things that are happening online today, give us a perspective so that we even know what we're talking about.
Hussain Shah (04:33)
Absolutely, absolutely. That's a great question and gets asked a lot and is often misunderstood or misused. So SEO search engine optimization is the bedrock of basically how content is organized, indexed and found for an impression or query. It's basically the meta tags and meta descriptions and H1, H2, etc. foundational work you have to do. The thing is SEO evolved into what became AEO or answer engine optimization and we all saw that like I Google, know,
Some are motorcycle helmets, which I need to get right now. I get like, are the characteristics of a good helmet? What are the safety standards? And the people ask, it also has like a little answer up top, the AIO overview. That
Andrew Colsky (05:16)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (05:16)
was the evolution that went from SEO to AEO. Now there's methodologies and things you can do to get into it. And we'll talk about that because there's consistency in this. And then the next one was basically GEO, generative engine optimization. So think of it this way, the SEO gets you
found, right? Like it's you're in that in that list. AEO gets you picked because you've mimicked their answer and you're basically you could spend zero dollars and if you're in the people also ask question box or in the knowledge graph, you just be everybody with a sponsored search. GEO goes beyond that. It's not just being picked. You're part of the conversation and their understanding of a concept. Now
Andrew Colsky (05:56)
Hmm.
Hussain Shah (05:57)
all three have basically work on one top of the other. So if you have good solid SEO,
You can move to what's called schema or microdata to start targeting FAQ questions. You can move further into managing your relationship
with generative crawlers. And then you kind of go and cross all three levels. Very important to it because nowadays the competition is such that you can't ignore it.
Andrew Colsky (06:20)
Right, right. All right, so let me break some of this stuff down because, you know, just like a lawyer speaking lawyer speak, we've got a marketer here giving us a lot of marketing terms. And,
Hussain Shah (06:29)
You
Andrew Colsky (06:32)
you know, for the audience, I'm sure their heads are spinning like, my God, what is he talking about with schema and all these other things? So let me start with the first part. So you talked about AEO or SEO, AEO, GEO.
So can you give us a little bit more in terms of examples? So, you
Hussain Shah (06:51)
She's like.
Andrew Colsky (06:52)
know, let me give you my understanding and then you expand upon it. So SEO is those terms and things that people look for when they're searching for something on the internet. And you've got to have SEO terms on your content so that it matches so that they find what they're looking for. AEO moves into the answer.
option where people are asking questions, know, can I discharge my student loans in bankruptcy or whatever it may be and now
Hussain Shah (07:21)
Exactly.
Andrew Colsky (07:22)
you've got to be able to provide content that answers those questions in order to show up in that search box for the AI. GEO,
Hussain Shah (07:30)
Exactly.
Andrew Colsky (07:32)
give us an example of what that looks like beyond the AEO.
Hussain Shah (07:37)
Absolutely. How about we take a piece of content? figured a. If a pretend piece of content we both everyone knows about, like say a blog post, I just need
Andrew Colsky (07:46)
Okay.
Hussain Shah (07:47)
wrote a wrote a blog post. Now the purpose of blog post professional services is to get it ranked and found for a concept. Say estate planning. You wrote a blog post top five pitfalls in the state planning or something right like good solid title.
Now the
Andrew Colsky (08:00)
Sure.
Hussain Shah (08:00)
top 5 top 10 is part of the SEO layer and that because we all know soon as you put a top 5 top 10 on any piece of content, its probability of being clicked goes up by like 50 % because people love that stuff. It's defined time defined effort. So say you wrote that blog SEO layer. You're to pick that cool title. Do that top 5 top 10 title. Then you can write a meta description for it. You would take the major keywords and you put him into H1 H2.
so they get higher priority like estate planning pitfalls or estate planning lawyers or something like that. That's all the SEO layer. Now
Andrew Colsky (08:35)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (08:35)
we move to the AEO layer, the answer engine optimization. What you want to do is say, all right, let me take the five keywords that are part of this estate planning blog and let me Google them and find out what are ranking questions. So when you Google anything, any topic, there's like those people also ask,
Andrew Colsky (08:56)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (08:56)
section that
shows up, you want to get into that section. Now here's the trick. You can be inspired by the questions, but you can never copy their answers. But you take the couple of questions that are top ranking and say, all right, at the end of my blog, I'm going to write a little section called FAQ. I'm going take those three questions, always keep limited to three, and I say three by 300. So three questions and the answer has to be about 300 on characters. Like, think two tweets long.
So
Andrew Colsky (09:26)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (09:27)
now you have got the meta descriptions, you've got the H1H2 for the SEO layer, now for the AU layer, you're putting in the FAQs and you're putting in the ones that are popular. And then to manage that on the backend, just like you manage the meta descriptions on the backend, to manage this on the backend, you're going to use what's called schema or microdata. It's its own little thing. There's schema generators you can Google and there are many good ones.
Most sites like if you have WordPress or you have Yoast or if you're familiar with Yoast, Yoast has a built-in schema manager. What it does is it takes each one of those and classifies it. The big difference is meta description is a claim, a microdata is a declaration, much more powerful. So
Andrew Colsky (10:12)
Hmm.
Hussain Shah (10:12)
now you're increasing your probability of showing up in not only that people also ask, but the knowledge panels about a question. So now let's go up a level. Of course, I'm running through this pretty fast. There's other things too.
Andrew Colsky (10:23)
Sure.
Hussain Shah (10:24)
Now let's go up a level to the GEO or the generative engine optimization where you want to be part of the conversation with one that is referenced as a trust link. So for example, if I typed in estate planning, right? I want to do estate planning for my. Father, like hypothetically as a question and I get the little answer box from AIO overview right in Google in this example and I do the deep search and it will list out all the sources it used to say this is the right answer.
Andrew Colsky (10:54)
Right?
Hussain Shah (10:54)
You
want to be that citation, that thing that it learned from it and said, yes, this is the estate planning pitfalls. And it says, yeah, estate planning is complex in Virginia or is not. I don't know, actually. But here the pitfalls in Virginia for estate planning, blah, blah. You're specific, you're targeted, you're meeting that thing. And because you have schema and you have good SEO, you're increasing your probability of both traffic and citations and the answers, your probability of them being picked up by the engines
goes up that much more. So that's kind of what GEO is. Basically, on the technical side, what you wanna do is you wanna open up your site's content, certain content for citation. Now the trick is, especially for professional services companies, is you don't wanna open up your site for training or crawling for that purpose, you wanna open it up for citation. So for example, if I look at, you know, New York Times or Gartner or any big knowledge bank,
they'll block all crawlers from training on the content, but they'll do it for citation. So what you have to do for say a law firm is
to be like, all right, we're gonna open up this section and this section, this section, or we may not wanna open up these sections. So managing that geo relationship, does that help?
Andrew Colsky (12:12)
It does and you know, I'm trying to listen to it as I was before I knew any of this stuff and here I was a professional service provider just trying to figure out how do I get myself out there and it is absolutely overwhelming the amount of opportunities on the internet.
Do you have to focus on everything? Where do you focus? How do you focus? And now I hear all these technical terms, SEO and AIO and GEO. And it's like,
Hussain Shah (12:42)
Yeah.
Andrew Colsky (12:45)
my entire life could be spent just trying to do this stuff, but I got to run a law practice. So,
Hussain Shah (12:50)
Accept it.
Andrew Colsky (12:53)
you know, in the beginning, if I'm just trying to get myself started, where do I start? What do I focus on first?
Hussain Shah (13:02)
So that's a great question. And there are two things that are going your way right now in this unique time in our industry or in the world. One is your ability to put out content and to put out expertise is infinitely more amplified by AI. What used to require, you know, like I've been in marketing way too long. So it's basically Google Analytics got born basically.
What used to require five years ago, a dedicated two, three person social media and a content manager and this, a one man team can literally do this with AI if they're smart. If they follow a couple of smart rules, they can totally do it because AI is what is doing it, it's amplifying scale at unbelievable speeds.
Andrew Colsky (13:47)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (13:47)
So one is to use AI smartly, not as what it's called AI slop, which is basically generic content going out. Second thing is,
AI Slab or that mass content that's being produced by everybody actually works in your advantage if you're smart about it. Because the thing is AI Slab or mass generic content is basically one all very similar and it's all very generic. If you just step in and put about an hour more effort and say, or 10 % more effort and say, all right, let me get to the specifics. What are the estate planning pitfalls in Virginia for...
for couples with, you know, whatever, no children or with, you know, children or something like specific concerns. Soon as you do that, you just jumped up, just jumped about the slot. So if you add that with the first thing about amplification, you have a lot of power. So just remember, go a little above what's the generic and amplify.
Integrate and amplify your AI. You have the advantage.
Andrew Colsky (14:54)
Right, right. So, you know, I'm going to add a piece in there or I'm not really adding, just amplifying what you're saying here. One of the things that I learned, and this is because I wear the hat of an attorney, I wear the hat of a mental health professional, and I wear the hat now of a marketer. And they all...
Hussain Shah (15:14)
And a super cool guy.
Andrew Colsky (15:17)
Well, I appreciate that. But they all converge. And here's what I mean by that.
The thing that I have learned through all of this work is that at the end of the day, the one thing that clients are looking for at the end of the day is comfort. They want to be comfortable and they have a problem. And let's say in this case, you're talking about estate planning. So I am an adult child. have a aging parent who is ill in ill health.
And we never got our paperwork together and we want to make sure we do a proper estate plan. And it is keeping me up at night, very uncomfortable in fear that, my God, we haven't really talked about this. We don't know what's going on. We don't know what's going to happen to the house, the money, whatever. And so I want to comfort that fear. I need to feel comfortable. And so I go into searching online. Now, do I search online for an estate attorney? Maybe if I understand what that is.
But really what I'm searching for is, know, my parents are elderly. I'm not so sure how much longer they're going to be here. We don't have an estate plan. What do I do? They're going to be asking the question that leads to their comfort because as soon as they find someone who says, don't worry about it. We got you covered. We can explain it to you. It's not as hard as you think. My anxiety goes way down.
That's the professional that I'm going to hire, not the one who told me that he went to the best schools and has all these awards and diplomas, which is great and wonderful, but it doesn't answer my question.
Hussain Shah (16:54)
my God, you've hit on two very important topics, personal services. One is self-medication. The whole thing about the internet is we're self-medicating with knowledge now, right? Like it used to be,
Andrew Colsky (17:04)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (17:05)
I had to go to a car dealership to see what the Jeep Wrangler's miles per gallon is and whether the Wrangler's good for me. I know all that I need to know about the Jeep Wrangler in one night of self-medication. And the same thing, I can go through the whole.
process of, okay, I got this, this, this, this, what is safe planning? What does it mean for me? My parents, you know, were they dementia or maybe not, or whatever, like the medical issues, blah, blah, I'm self-medicating. Just like you were at night, you're self-medicating. Content infrastructure or the trust infrastructure is basically working 24 hours to do that. Second, very important thing you touched on is in any B2B or any special services sale, we know, for example, the cystics that 85 % of the decision buyers
will go after the person who added value, not discovery, added value to their self-medication. So if I just say, yeah, I have a degree from a very cool university, great. Versus if I say, yes, we actually have a practice, here's a little guide for state planning, here's what we do, here's our process, here's an FAQ, here's a
short five minute video, only because video content goes more. Here's an infographic on it, here's how our process and our bespoke procedure works with you.
You're going to pick me.
Andrew Colsky (18:19)
Right, right. And that's really what this show is all about is how do you go from, we say it on our website, how do you go from clicked to picked?
Hussain Shah (18:28)
Yeah exactly.
Andrew Colsky (18:29)
Because, you know, as good of an attorney as you are, there's other attorneys out there that are equally as good. So from
Hussain Shah (18:37)
.
Andrew Colsky (18:38)
a consumer's perspective, how do I pick attorney A versus attorney B? I'm going to find the one that makes me feel comfortable that they can take away my pain and bring me back to comfort.
Hussain Shah (18:48)
Exactly. Self-medicate to you the best.
Andrew Colsky (18:52)
Yeah. So, so, so let's, let's transition that over now into like the, the whole new search that we've talked about already, the AI and things like that. And the thing that I talk with clients about is you gotta understand what those questions are. Like you were saying, the questions are that they're asking and then answer those questions, not the questions you want to answer. You're not the client.
answer the questions the client wants to know. That's how you're going to get found on AI.
Hussain Shah (19:25)
100 % and the thing is we're living in the great data gold rush, guess is a good word for it. AI engines, search engines will tell you what those questions are, what those queries are without you spending a dollar. You can actually get the queries and questions for which your competitors are ranking for. You can try to compete for that space. So think of that content as, I'm gonna, here's the five questions related to this. Is it this?
I'm going after this topical area, here are the questions supporting it up, here are the elements that make it good or bad. I'm going to do that now. And you can get those questions in that data relatively fast now.
Andrew Colsky (20:04)
Okay, so let's talk about this then.
As a busy attorney,
Hussain Shah (20:12)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (20:12)
I'm trying to keep my practice going. I got all sorts of stuff I got to worry about.
Hussain Shah (20:14)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Andrew Colsky (20:16)
And now I'm hearing that I got to do this marketing stuff on top
Hussain Shah (20:20)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Colsky (20:20)
of that. Isn't it good enough to just hire someone to build a fancy website for me and that'll take care of
Hussain Shah (20:30)
No, that's also evolution in some ways. used to be, you know, two, years ago for professional services and the conservative businesses like lawyers, it was like, yes, website, it was essentially a billboard. You put up a billboard and it was very shiny and bright lights right on 66 and that was it, right? Thing is that billboard thing is gone. It's no longer a billboard. It is, I want as a consumer to almost have ownership or trust in it and has to be a living organism.
So has to be able to publish more, to move with the trends, able to see seasonality, able to change with laws, able to change your trends, and able to track my needs. The consumer has become much more demanding and kind of, in some ways, I hate to say it, kind of spoiled. It's almost like, what do mean you don't know what I'm thinking? You know, like, okay.
Andrew Colsky (21:21)
Yeah
Hussain Shah (21:24)
And that's where data and the modern marketing trust infrastructure comes in is basically you got to move within maker site lives. Content is one important thing. Credibility gap is important thing. How you use paid media is now completely overdone. So yeah, the website has to be a living organism. You have to treat it almost like an employee that is working 24 seven for you and you got to coach it.
Andrew Colsky (21:51)
Okay, so then let's talk some details about that. What specifically can I do to keep my website as a living organism and deal with those credibility gaps? And how do I even know what my credibility gaps are?
Hussain Shah (22:04)
That's a great question. So first thing I always say is let's do a digital footprint audit. So remember there is quite due diligence that happens in professional services buying. Like they don't reach out to you and say, you know, tell me about you and your practice. That's not really the thing here. They're going to do quite due diligence, self-medicate themselves. All right, so what is your digital footprint look like? What does your LinkedIn profile look like? What does your published articles look like? What does your websites, articles or solutions or practices areas look like?
What does your other third party credentials look like? What does your Google business profile look like? Remember, a consumer who is engaging with a professional services or a lawyer is not going to know the industry little watering holes. They're going to go after the generic stuff, the big big channels. What is your position look like on those? That's the first thing I would say. Figure that out, then build a consistency layer on top of that and say, OK, there's a footprint.
here's the five things we're gonna make sure everybody knows we're good at. We're good at A, B, D, and E, that's it. That's what we do, that's what we're really good at. And then we're gonna build the content, the trust infrastructure and say, here's why we're good at it, here's what we can regularly push on it, here's what we can do on it. If you can just do those three things, you're gonna, one, build out your footprint better, two, you're gonna control your internal resources, burn because you're, say you're a lawyer or a consultant.
you're not a content producer per se, but if you can narrow the lane and you say, here's what we're gonna do and here's the process and a content calendar that says, I'm gonna commit to this over the next 60 days, things are gonna start looking a lot more attainable. And then
Andrew Colsky (23:43)
Mm-hmm.
Hussain Shah (23:44)
you layer on top of that the technology and AI layer. So for example, you're supporting three different channels, Say for example, you wrote that blog on estate planning.
I know we keep talking about it, but the state planning blog, you And you put the
Andrew Colsky (23:58)
Sure.
Hussain Shah (23:59)
FAQs in and did all that. So here's how social media math, as I jokingly say, goes. One piece of blog is one posting on
four channels, right? That's on say LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, X, YouTube, whatever, right? Like one piece of content, one posting. You take that piece of content and say, all right.
Let me make an infographic out of this. Now it's two. If you take another piece and say, all right, let me make a 90 second YouTube short out of it, that's three. If you make a six minute explainer video out of it, that's four. If I make a little sound bite out of it, that's five. If I make a little top 10 list of pitfalls infographic out of it, that's six. So now it's six times four channels, that's 24 postings. You just
Andrew Colsky (24:39)
Well.
Hussain Shah (24:39)
want from four to 24 postings on a single original piece of content. That's the other thing is you have to...
People don't value their time in professional services. Writing a blog on like the pitfalls of estate planning, that's your expertise and your time being used. I'm saying maximize it. Make that 24 thing flood the field. And the thing is, as long as the, you can use AI to amplify and create, but human in the loop, anything that goes out must be touched by a human and it's original content because the seed is original. So you have a better chance of getting over the slot.
Andrew Colsky (25:16)
So are you telling me that in order to get this stuff out there, I don't need to become the break dancing lawyer free for...
Hussain Shah (25:23)
No, no, That's
the other thing. are like, yeah, need to be at this social media meeting. I need to be a TikTok. Like, no, Nobody's going to hire a TikTok lawyer unless, you whatever. But it's like, am I the source of trust for you? How do I become a
Andrew Colsky (25:38)
Right.
Hussain Shah (25:38)
source of trust? By LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, YouTube shorts. Those are going to be the things that are your chat.
Andrew Colsky (25:46)
Okay, here's a tell me if what I'm saying is true or false. There's one thing about people who look for trying to get this viral video content on the internet because they feel that, well, that means that I'm really being seen versus what we're talking about here in terms of building trust and credibility. You're not looking for a million views. You're looking for maybe 58 views of the right people that are looking for that information.
That's a successful video. Is that true or false?
Hussain Shah (26:17)
Exactly.
Exactly. You're not looking for the flash in a pan. You're trying to bake a souffle here. Absolutely. 100%. Because that viral video, half the time you also don't remember when videos go viral, 90 % of traffic is actually bots. They're just cataloging doing that nonsense. None of them are buyers. And then it's like, oh, cool. Let me look through that and like, blah. And if I was like, say for example, there's a viral video on a cell phone holder. Okay. Purchase price is $4. Risk is whatever. It's a 3D printed thing. That's that.
Here at Professional Services, I'm trusting you with my livelihood and likely more. I'm not gonna go 30 seconds. I'm gonna mediate. I'm gonna make sure I know your process, because I almost feel like I wanna have ownership on you, because I'm trusting you with my wellbeing here.
Andrew Colsky (27:05)
Right. And I, you know, liken it to investing. I can take money and put it into a slot machine and hope that I get a payoff that's called advertising.
Hussain Shah (27:17)
Exactly.
Andrew Colsky (27:18)
Or I can take that same hundred dollars, I can invest it into an exchange traded fund and I can leave it alone. And then I can put a hundred dollars again next month and hundred dollars next month. And in my retirement, I now have a million dollars.
The point with content is the same thing. The content that we're talking about building is called evergreen, meaning everything you put out there continues to stay there and then build on itself and build on itself and build on itself. And it's always there and it's always available versus the, you know, the break dancing lawyer, ha ha, funny, funny man, you know, gets a bunch of views and then it's gone. So we're talking about investing in yourself. We're not talking about some, you know, quick flash in the pan thing.
Hussain Shah (28:05)
Exactly, exactly. 100 % agree with you because that investment, inevitably is a relationship and that's a professional services. We're relationship, we're investing, we're building a relationship and we're going to have that trust. And that's what goes through the thick and thin.
Andrew Colsky (28:23)
Right, Wow, it's, mean, we talked about a lot of concepts and
Hussain Shah (28:28)
Hahaha
Andrew Colsky (28:29)
things here and I can, you know, look, I do this all the time and I'm overwhelmed. I can only imagine someone who doesn't, you know, is it step one trying to figure out all this stuff. And the reality is that, you know, you cannot physically
run your business, especially like a law firm or a therapy practice or a dental practice, whatever your professional practice is, you can't run your practice and be a full-time marketer. But at the same time, you know, if you're a small practice, hiring a full-time marketer might get to be more expensive than you can handle. And you got to balance all these things. What can you afford? What do you need to be out there? And so by, by
by effectively creating the appropriate evergreen content and you don't need to be on every single channel. Pick where
Hussain Shah (29:23)
Exactly.
Andrew Colsky (29:24)
your audience is going to be most, right?
Hussain Shah (29:27)
100%, know your channel of optimal resistance. Absolutely, 100%. And I think you bring up a great point about you're starting out, small. You definitely don't wanna be starting a relationship with an agency after that. I personally always say for professional services, the first thing is know thyself, the digital footprint. What is your digital footprint? And then know thy customer. All right, here's my digital footprint, here's where I need to make this better.
Here's what my customer ideally is looking for. Again, this is not rocket science. Here's what they're looking for. Once you have step one and step two, the content, if you just build good content and follow simple things like even small, I'm going to focus on LinkedIn
and YouTube or Facebook and three channels. And I want to be known for being a trusted source on those channels for these three topics. That's a great goal to start with.
Andrew Colsky (30:22)
Right, absolutely. Well, that is a great point for us to end the podcast because we are out of time for today. Before I wrap up, I'll ask if you have sort of any final thoughts for the audience.
Hussain Shah (30:41)
I think this is a don't be old, please don't get overwhelmed by the AI content slop. Consistency pays off, persistence pays off as it has always paid off. Consistency and persistence in this age and any age will pay off. Just got to focus on who I am, here's where I want to be. Let me chart that little path.
Andrew Colsky (31:05)
And if somebody wanted to get in contact with you and MarCom 247, how would they do that?
Hussain Shah (31:11)
Come on down to my website markom247.com, marketingmarkom247.com. And my name is Hussain Shah. I'd love to help if I can.
Andrew Colsky (31:23)
Fantastic. Well, we really appreciate you taking time out of your day to join us here and share all of these insights. And hopefully our listeners are learning more about what they can do and what might be, you know, they might not be ready for yet, but what they can build towards. But, you know, the best place to start is here. That's all I can say. Start from the beginning.
Hussain Shah (31:43)
Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly. Thank
you so much. It is wonderful being here. Thank you for having me. Real pleasure.
Andrew Colsky (31:50)
Thank you. And
so for all of you listening, we have all sorts of additional podcasts and great guests and great information. You can find it all on www.vpict.com, which is B E hyphen P I C K E D dot com. We look forward to seeing you there and we look forward to seeing you on a future podcast.
Hussain Shah (32:11)
Thank