Be The Brand AI Recommends | James Dooley Interviews Paul Truscott (James Dooley Interviews Paul Truscott)

James Dooley: Get your business recommended by AI by using Be The Brand AI Recommends. So obviously there's a new brand called Be The Brand AI Recommends, which is BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com. Today I'm joined with Paul Truscott, who's one of the co-founders of the brand that's offering an AEO or a GEO or an LLM SEO service. But today's episode is about why is it important to get your business being recommended by AI. Okay. So we'll kick off with that in mind, that most of the attention at the moment seems to be focused on just getting discovered by AI, getting, having the visibility, AI visibility, which is all well and good, but it's only going to take you so far.

Paul Truscott: Because one of the things that we've discovered, James, with everything that we've been testing, just with your own brands as well and what you've seen empirically yourself, is that, um, people are using these chatbots, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode, Grok, etc. They're using those to actually make buying decisions. So rather than a, a lot of the questions that they would have asked a company on the phone in the past, where they would have gone through maybe three or four different companies, rung them all up and asked the questions, they're now asking those questions of AI. And then they're trusting the answer that they're given and they're phoning one company and they're phoning to book you. So they're coming with their wallet open, ready to do business with you. Uh, but that only works if you get recommended. Uh, if you're not one of the... If you're not the business that they recommend, you're just one that they cite along the way. You never even get the phone call. You never even know it's happened.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, for me, it's been... It's been absolutely crazy the last few months where we've been digging deeper into AEO and GEO and basically trying to get recommended because I used... I never used to really be able to tell the difference between an AI citation and an AI recommendation. I just thought they were synonyms of each other and they meant... They meant the same thing. And I, I never really, until I started to dig deeper into bottom of the funnel, at the 11th hour, side by side with that Decision Engine Optimisation, that people are actually asking ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity or Grok or Google, and then the AI Overview showing up, which one should I use? And then they're listening to AI as if it's a recommendation like a friend's or a family's given it. And it's, it's crazy at that 11th hour. But then everyone just seems obsessed with discovery and being cited and getting more inquiries that come through. But then also another part is, which I want you to kind of expand on a little bit, is the amount of leads that we've been generating over the last six months or probably even the last 12 months have slowly started to dwindle down ever so slightly. Every month it's going down, like, a few percent. This is across 850 different markets. However, and this is the big part, sales going up. So, yeah, we're having less leads than ever, but yet we're having our best ever year with regards to revenue and profits. And people are coming through and they are so much more... They understand so much more of what they want. All the top of the funnel, they're asking AI. They're making better, way more informed decisions. And when they're actually inquiring, they're almost ready to sign on the dotted line straight away. Can you expand on that a little bit more?

Paul Truscott: Okay, so it completely makes sense if people think it through, right? Um, before AI came along and people were using it, uh, the way that you discovered things online was you use typically Google, maybe Bing to a much lesser extent, but typically it would be a Google search, right? And, and people even say, "I'll Google it." It was... It became synonymous with searching online. So, but when... What would happen is that Google would give you a bunch of options by, um, they'd give you, uh, some Maps listings maybe if it was a local inquiry, then they'd give you a bunch of websites, and then you were left on your own. It was up to you. I mean, the Google Business listings, to some degree, they were using, like, a mental heuristic because they're giving... They're putting in front of you the review count, the average rating, the phone number's right there in your face, you can click to call. So they were shortening the journey in that respect, but you still had to make the choice yourself. There was no, uh, discernment on Google's part. It was just, here's a bunch of businesses that are local to you, pick one. Um, but with AI, what's happening now is that the AI is selecting it for you based on your criteria. So, the people are having that conversation with AI and it's almost like a filter, James. So, as they enter into the conversation, um, they're adding things to their list, their wish list, if you like, right? They're saying, "Oh, I want one that does this. Can they do that? Are they good for this? What's their rating?" So bit by bit they're filtering out all of the businesses that haven't shouted about that particular attribute. And then they get down... They're left with the ones that have, that have done that hard work, right? And they're the ones that get recommended. And everyone else, yeah, you were cited. You were at the beginning of that journey. Your business was listed. But it quickly got filtered out when that person started asking specific questions, uh, and saying, "But I need this and I need this and I need this." The same way they would when they call. But people aren't getting those calls. So, back to your original point, leads are down. Yes, less people calling. But if you've got your act together and you're being recommended by AI, you're getting less calls, but you're getting more customers because a much higher percentage of those calls that are coming through are ready to book.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And then I want to kind of close up here and talk about the brand that obviously has been launched, BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com. Obviously, it's quite a long one. It's not just like AEOSEO.co.uk. It's quite a long, BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com. Why... Why have we decided to go with such a longer name? It does. I mean, normally we like them short. We like them sweet. Go with a branded name. Why have we gone with BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com?

Paul Truscott: I think it's really to get rid of the confusion in people's minds because there's a lot of confusion out there, even within our industry. There's confusion. Uh, and when you actually go to business owners, they have no idea what all of these acronyms that we use, you know, uh, AEO, GEO, LLM seeding, LLM SEO, AI SEO, they have no idea what any of them mean. And like you said earlier, a lot of what the industry is putting out at the moment is all visibility, visibility, visibility, right? They're not talking about, um, what you framed a few months ago, which, like, you were absolute leading edge in the market in defining Decision Engine Optimisation, which is essentially that the engines are making a decision and they're recommending someone. And unless you know how that works and what to do, it isn't going to be you. So, yeah, it's important that from, I think, from our perspective, that individual businesses, not the SEO industry, understand better what's required. And so, Be The Business That AI Recommends. Uh, they understand that that's like... And that's why we're going with natural language. So ordinary everyday people understand what it is that we do for them.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Anyone who's listening to this, if you want to get an AEO or AI SEO audit, make sure you go over to BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com. Myself, Paul or Peter, we've... With the co-founders, we've launched a brand. I've mainly launched it myself, mainly. I'm, I'm excited by not just discovery, not top of the funnel, not increasing the volume of inquiries that people might be getting, but all the messy middle as well. Google came out with a messy middle sales funnel. It was like a sideways figure number eight. And there's so many people that are asking so many different questions like, should I use this brand? Why should I not use this brand? Is this brand legit? Should I use competitor number one or competitor number two? Why should I use competitor number two? There's so many questions that they're asking the AI. And if you're able to build and cascade that confidence with your brand, with who you are, what you do, and why you are brilliant, to amplify those awards, to amplify those case studies, to get it out there that the LLMs are reading it, to be making certain that you are the source, you are the recommended brand of what you're doing. This is why me, Peter and Paul have set it up because we've seen a lot of these AEO services that's just saying it's just SEO. It's not. There's so much more to it to get the LLMs to start recommending you and having AI to become your 24/7 salesperson and sales machine. It's working for you when you're sleeping. It's recommending you when you're not in the room. It's then citing your companies. It's so, so important. So, make sure you go over to BeTheBrandAIRecommends.com, fill in the form, and hopefully one of the team should be in touch to try and take your business onto the next level when it comes to AI. Paul, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks, James.