00:02Welcome to Digital Champions TV, where we meet the top leaders in the field of advertising and
00:08marketing. I'm Greg Kirkham, and today we're joined by Meili Aztele, the CEO of Smart Finds
00:16Marketing based in Birmingham, Michigan. Welcome, Meili. Nice to be on the show, Greg.
00:22Now, Meili, your journey began with starting Smart Finds Marketing in 1987. How has that
00:30experience shaped your approach to digital marketing and growth of your agency over the
00:36years? We started the corporation back in 1987. But, and over the years, we've had like four
00:43different brands under our corporation. In 1994, we started the internet group, which was called
00:50Speedlink at the time. And then in 2004, we started Smart Finds and we went 100% digital. And so,
00:59yes,
00:59it's been a long journey. It was been a lot of fun, you know, buzzing through all the different things
01:04that are going on on the internet, going back to the early days, all the way to where we are
01:09today.
01:10So, yes, it's, it's been a lot of fun. Wow. So you've been around a while.
01:19What have some of the biggest changes been in the industry that you've seen that really impacted
01:27the industry? You know, if I, if I go back over these years, I would say like, we take a
01:33look at
01:33the 1990s. It was the wild, wild west of the internet. We had no rules, no boundaries, no nothing.
01:39Just do whatever you want to. You know, Netscape, Yahoo, modems, ISDN line, T1 lines. That's the world
01:49as it was then. And then as the internet grew and more budget was going towards the internet,
01:56whether it was AT&T or Comcast coming in and, you know, putting, laying in fiber,
02:04all these different things that were happening in the early 2000s. But I would say the next
02:09biggest change was Google going public in 2004, which happens to coincide the same year we went
02:15100% digital. Google turned things upside down. Initially, it was a big shock, but eventually
02:23turned into this very good strategic business tool. So that was the, that was the first, I would say,
02:28the second major issue. The next major issue was social media, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace,
02:35that turned, you know, the old days of AOL and CompuServe and so on and so forth, upside down
02:42and move people to online social communities, which is a good thing. Beyond that, if we take
02:49a look at, you know, all the different things that have been going with algorithms and so on
02:52and so forth, I would say the next major change has been artificial intelligence.
02:59Yeah. And how do you think that artificial intelligence is impacting, but has the ability
03:07to impact? Marketing-filled, but then also adjacent-filled?
03:14Yeah, I, you know, I think, I'm not a big fan of people that are going down the fear factor
03:20route when it comes to artificial intelligence. I think we have to keep in mind that what they're
03:25calling artificial intelligence is more like version 0.0. It, there is no fear factor at the
03:31moment. All it's taking is mass amounts of data and crunching it for us very efficiently, very quickly.
03:38And so to that extent, I have found that artificial intelligence that we have today on the market,
03:44all the GPTs, all the different tools that we're able to interconnect with each other have made,
03:49especially in the marketing world, life much more efficient. You're able to do the same,
03:55you're able to do twice as much work in the same amount of time at the same budget.
04:00And so to that extent, I, you know, as far as I'm concerned, what we've seen with AI has been
04:08a good
04:08thing for business. Now, you know, before I let you go, I really want to get a feel for,
04:17for smart finds and what you do differently. How do you best serve your clients and what is your ideal
04:26client base? Yeah. So, um, we're a 360 marketing agency. Um, the team that's currently working with
04:35me has been around for 13 years. We have clients that move with us for 10 plus years. Um, of
04:41course,
04:41they haven't been with us that much. They could have been there much longer, but we had that financial
04:46crisis in 2009 and 10 in which Detroit was ground zero. So aside from that disaster, um, we've had,
04:53we have a creative team, a tech team, we have our marketing team, we have writers, um, everything's
04:59in house and everybody's in Detroit. And so to that extent, um, it's a, uh, 360 agency. There's nothing
05:07that we can't do nowadays. Um, our clients are tend to be B2B. It doesn't make a difference where in
05:13the
05:13B2B world they are. Um, if you're asking me how, you know, um, how do we help our clients? I
05:19think a
05:19meeting I had with a client this morning is probably best presented this way. I told the
05:24client, we need to have a meeting, not for you to buy anything or make decisions. What I want you
05:31to
05:31do is know what's on the market. When the senior VP of marketing doesn't know what's on the market.
05:37And all of a sudden the CEO of that large corporation comes to him and saying, Hey, why aren't
05:42we doing this? He needs to be aware that this is a, this is an option. He needs to know
05:46what the
05:47options are. And so from our standpoint, aside from providing marketing, advertising, PR and
05:53so on, so, and website and many other services to our clients, the other side of the coin
05:58is to make sure our clients are educated about the different things and the changing activities
06:04in marketing tools on the web.
06:07Wonderful. Thank you, Maylee for sharing your expertise and perspectives with us today to
06:13learn more about smart, smart finds marketing and Maylee's delay, visit our site at digital
06:19championstv.com We're working with agencies to be able to scale them and grow them and provide
06:30them services that would cost them way more than it would for them to do it themselves. As,
06:36as an agency owner, you need the support of other people to really be able to serve your
06:42clients better and be able to provide them with services that they're going to not only
06:47want to purchase for the first time, but they're going to want to continue purchasing over the
06:53long haul. So it includes anything from video production all the way to web design, SEO, video
06:59content, and then also lead generation, social media, the works. What we do is we take a hands-on
07:08approach with our clientele to be able to help you be successful, help you grow, help you really
07:15dial in who you are as an agency, and help you focus more on those core values that you
07:23want within your business. We're not just a, you know, a white label agency, we're a consultancy.
07:31And because we have skilled multiple agencies, we've worked with hundreds of clients, we know what
07:42it takes to be able to, to grow the business.
07:53you
07:53and we're looking for more information to your needs and those clients, and we know what
07:58and you
07:58and tell us what your clients have got from your clientele to say you wouldn't have
07:59and tell us what you can do to give out what's said to you and how to offer your clients,
07:59Do you know what you're looking for?
07:59With your clients,
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