Jay Cruiz

Editor:

Today's guest is Jay Cruiz, a dynamic entrepreneur, educator, and digital growth strategist who serves as the face and marketing director of AmpiFire, a platform that helps businesses get major online exposure through content amplification. Jay is known for breaking down complex marketing ideas into clear, actionable strategies, and he's helped thousands of entrepreneurs grow their visibility and influence online, all without relying on paid ads. Jay, it's great to have you on.

Jay Cruiz:

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks. Good to be here. Ready to rock and roll.

Editor:

Can I start by asking, how did your journey into the world of online marketing begin?

Jay Cruiz:

I originally got into this world through a friend of mine. His name is Joey Xoto, and he built a very successful business called Viddyoze. With two other no-names, if you like, David Chamberlain and Jamie Garside. So they were from up north in the UK, fellow Brits. And so what happened was I met Joey. Well, I've known Joey all my life, actually. Sorry. Well, I met him in nursery, kindergarten. But we were always obsessed with trying to build businesses and set something up. And I remember meeting him after a long time where I was struggling in my sort of life, early 20s, early to mid 20s, and so was he. And we were working dead-end jobs, and we were just sick and tired of life. And it's weird, we met in Starbucks after a long time, and I was like, "How are you?" And he was like, "Oh my, God. Jay." And then we both looked tired and haggard, and we started talking. It was like, man, there's got to be more to life than this. If I have to jump on another train to commute another hour and hour back, I can't do it. It's soul-destroying. He was the same. And so we started talking, coming up with ideas, and we started making videos. This is back in... This is over 12 years ago now, but I started making videos. And he was really talented with the camera, and I love being on camera. So he was super talented. Hence, why I built this multi-million dollar business afterwards. But he used to shoot me and we used to do just random videos and we thought, "Oh, this is going to make loads of money. We're going to go viral." We didn't make anything.

Editor:

Right.

Jay Cruiz:

We didn't make a single penny from those videos, but we had lots of fun. And I remember sitting there thinking, "Well, this isn't doing anything. What do we do?" We started up a page when Facebook was in its not infancy, but it was evolving back then. I don't know if you remember, you used to have these pages and you liked them and it's like, "I love horses," or I love this and that. We built a I Love Horses page with the idea of selling horse t-shirts. We ran paid ads on it, and I remember we had the last £10 each, so around $15 each. So it was a coffee or the ads, and we thought, "You know what? Screw it. Let's just do it." Right. The next day, we came back and we had hundreds of likes and we were just over the moon, I remember, with zero plan, but that's where we started. So anyway, this went on, lots of ideas, dead end, but lots of fun. And then one day Joey rings me and says, "Oh, Jay, I figured it out." And I'm like, "Dude, I'm interviewing for this job, but what is it?" And we would get jobs just to keep us going and work there for six months and then stop. Try start a business, fail. Go into a job. So he was like, "Jay, I figured it out." I was like, "Yeah, go on. Quickly tell me. I'm going into an interview." Hey, brother, I haven't got time. And he's like, "Oh, okay. Okay, listen, I found the guy." And I'm like, "Well, what guy?" And he goes, "The guy that's going to teach us how to become super rich and successful." And I was like, "Okay, carry on. I can be late for this interview." Right? "No worries. Tell me more." And he goes, "His name's Alex Jeffries." And I'm like, "Okay." I had no idea, right? Because I... Joey would be online all the time. I didn't know. And I went, "Fine. What's the deal?" And he is like, "Well, I've reached out to him and to see if you would mentor me for free." And I'm like, "You trap. Brilliant. Love that." And he goes, "But here's the deal." He said, "If you'd shoot a video for me telling me why I should work with you and take you under my wing, then I'll consider it." And we thought, "Great." And now Joey doesn't like being on camera at that time. He's got a lot more comfortable over the years, but at that time, he wanted to focus on the technical side because he was great with the camera. So he said, "Jay, we've got to shoot this video. You're going to be on the video. I'm going to record it, and we have to send this to Alex Jeffries." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm in. Let's go." Happy days. So anyway, we're there. We shoot this video, it's still up there. I think when Alex got it, he had I think Frank Kern and all these other guys in his inner circle group, and he pinned it to the top and everyone's commenting and it's gaining momentum. But the funny thing is, everybody thought that I was Joey because I'm on the video. Anyway, fast-forward a couple of weeks, Alex invites Joey to come and see him in Cardiff. Joey goes, they shoot a documentary, and that was it. In return, I think Alex let him into his inner circle, trained him, and Joey launched a product, made 20K in one go. Bam. And for us, that was unbelievable. What happened after that is he shot the documentary and then Joey says, "Right, I'm in the inner circle. There's an event Alex has got, why don't you come down? Alex wants to meet you." I was like, "Yeah, perfect. Sounds good." So me, Joey, his wife at the time, drove down to Cardiff. And for me, it was a whole new world. And Joey was up on stage as one of the case studies, because he was just up and coming. And anyone who actually does the work and applies the stuff, they were always front and centre, whereas 90% of people don't do anything. That's just the internet marketing world for you. So he's on stage, we're at the event, and on my right, this booming American voice comes out. I hear it and I turn around and then I was like, "Oh, how are you? Where are you from?" And he is like, "Oh, I'm from the States, but I hate the States." And I was like, "Okay, interesting." Straight away, you know when you've got a character, and I love characters. So then I was like, "Cool." Introduced myself. He introduced himself and he says, "Oh, my name's Chris Winters." I had no idea who he was, but he said it as if I should know. So I was like, "Yeah, yeah, sure. Great, I'll see you later. Yeah." Anyway, fast-forward that evening, Joey's like, "Oh, I've got a great dinner lined up. I've got this affiliate superstar, one of the biggest affiliates in the space coming." And I'm like, "Brilliant. Yeah, whatever." At this stage, again, I have no idea what any of this means. So I turn up to dinner and there is this American gentleman called Chris Winters, and I'm thinking, "Oh, you're a big affiliate. Sorry, mate. I didn't realise." So we got talking. We really got on with Chris Winters, and I think he saw me as maybe a younger version of himself a little bit. He was saying things like that, because he also struggled when he was younger. And he goes, "You know what? There's an event in Fuerteventura in about a few months' time. You need to be there. I live in Barcelona, and you are more than welcome to stay in my house." And I'm thinking, wow, this is it. This is how business deals happen and life changes. And so we packed our bags, and even though I wasn't sure I was going to go, because the ticket cost a certain amount. I couldn't really afford it. And Joey's like, "Mate, you need to come." Because his business journey's kicked off at this point. And he's like, "You have to come." So I was like, "Ah, last bit of money. Let's go." So we fly over to Fuerteventura, but on the way there, we stayed with Chris Winters and his family for a week. And the funniest part is when he invited us, because we were all enjoying... You know when you're in the heat at the moment, he's like, "You have to come, you have to come." We were like, "Yeah." So fast-forward a few months, knock, knock, knock, knock on the door. He opens the door and he is like, "Oh, (beep), you guys actually came?" Wow. And it is me, Joey, and his wife. So we are there, and then Chris is like, right, we're going to go to Fuerteventura, where he was speaking. Chris is speaking, and then another gentleman jumps on stage. He's quite tall, Welsh, and I'm thinking, "Interesting." He jumps on stage and he starts talking about the Fibonacci sequence and all. His presentation was, like, two hours long. And I was blown away just by his experience. And he had just launched a product and he was quite famous in the industry, and everyone said, he is the smartest guy in the room. And I'm just like, wow, okay, cool. And his name was Chris Munch. That's my now business partner. And so he's doing this presentation that evening when we're at dinner. Chris Winters says, "Listen, there's an opportunity here. Just don't question it. Just go with it and get it done." Because Chris Munch used to go to Chris Winters for advice. Anyway, the point being that that was my way in. That was my way in. So I got in with Chris. We got on really well, and then fortuitously, we were coming back to Barcelona after the event, and Chris was actually moving in and we were moving out. Because he was going to stay there for a week. Because at that point, he was travelling the world and digital nomad. For me, that was like, wow, these guys are rock stars. But in that crossover, there was I think a day or two where we were moving out, Chris moving in. And so we had a lot of dinners and spent time together working on our laptops together and stuff like that. And so I think that's what bonded us because we realised that our values and everything sort of overlap quite a bit. And we shared a lot of the same sort of thinking and family values and stuff like that. So that's really important to me. So anyway, I went back home, back to my dead-end job, and then I thought I've screwed this up. Chris Winters is not getting back to me. I think he was busy. I'm thinking, I've absolutely tanked this for myself. Great. Well done, Jay. You know, smashed it. But I get a call on Skype and it's Chris Munch, and I'm like, oh my God, what do I do? I'm not prepared for this. You second guess because you've never done it before. So then I remember writing him back, saying, "Oh yeah, I'll call you in a few." And he is like, "Yeah, no worries." Just that he's really nice about it. But then when we finally jumped on Skype, he explained the position to me and he goes, "Right, I need someone to run my webinars because I don't want to do that. I want to focus on the business. What do you say?" And I did something super, super dumb on that call. I had this huge opportunity. He finally gave me the position and I said, "I don't want to work for anyone. So thank you, but no, thank you." And as you're saying stuff, you just think to yourself, what am I doing? But then again, that was what I wanted. And he said, "Listen, if you do this right, you won't have to worry about that. But I've got a business. You've got Jack. I've hit six to seven figures at this point. You've hit zero, right?" And he wasn't saying this to be unkind. He was just showing me reality. And he goes, "Isn't it better you jump in? And I'm not just going to give you a position or a partnership. You have to prove yourself, obviously, because I've invested all this money. We've built this business. You've done nothing, and you want to a part of this business?" Doesn't make any sense, right? So I went, and you see what I mean? So it's very pragmatic and it's fair, and I couldn't argue with that. So we agreed that I would come in for a year, prove myself. I worked for hardly anything at that time, but I was just fiercely, fiercely determined to prove myself. And so yeah, fast-forward, what, 12 years now, we partnered up, got this lovely software company.

Editor:

Isn't bravado an amazing thing when you are young? And you think, I know the world and this is what I want, but actually maybe the universe has different plans for you. Is that the way it felt? Now looking back?

Jay Cruiz:

It did, but it also, and I think I've learned this over the years, is that an entrepreneur, as I've seen, can get blindsided by themselves, if you like. But I just had a niggling feeling that Chris knew what he was talking about. So I was humbled a little bit. And I think you're absolutely right. It's easy to have that bravado and think I can do anything. But something held me to Chris at that moment. Something weird. Because I just felt a calming thing, actually. I think I knew everything, but there's very few people I'd met where I was like, nah, this guy, there's something about this guy. Like, he knows. You know what I mean? It was a quiet wisdom and a very quiet but massive amount of confidence. And so that's what drew me to him.

Editor:

Do you think as well, I know obviously now you're business partners, but do you think at that time he was a little bit of a mentor, that guiding arm around the shoulder, like, "I can help you if you let me help you"?

Jay Cruiz:

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think it's really, what's fascinating is we've talked about this a lot, because over the years Chris has always been that way with me. Maybe not in the last two or three years, but it's more balanced now. I think I've learned a lot, and I've levelled up where we will critique each other's work and we call it ripping each other up. That for us is like therapy, right? It's like I'll do a webinar, I'll be like, "What do you think? Rip it up, or we'll do a VSL?" We are launching some copy for our software company or whatever it might be. And that accountability is just like, that's how we work and that's how you level up. If you look at any company that's especially tech and stuff, that's what they do. The culture is no insecurity and defensiveness. But definitely that mentorship thing is key. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, again, are just too proud to want to do stuff like that. But I don't think a mentor should be outside of your business. So I've got this really, really deep philosophy on it, and I think you need to find mentors within the business. Push your ego to the side. Find people who are better than you at certain things, which you're going to find in your business, even if you're one of the owners. And just learn from these people, because they've got skillsets which you might not have yourself.

Editor:

That's really good advice, really good advice. In terms of your business, how it looks today, maybe you could just walk us through the business that you and Chris have together, where it's been, and also how it is right now and what your plans are moving forward.

Jay Cruiz:

I should probably preface this with the fact that we were involved in the internet marketing world years ago, but we've never launched multiple products that haven't fed the core goal of building this business and this one business, one idea, one focus. And we've always had that. And that's been hard. Don't get me wrong. Because when revenue drops, which it has over the years, you've had some years which are tough, some years which are amazing, but it's riding it out and staying on the horse long enough. And I think there's this idea of, what do they call it, compound interest that I'm fascinated with. There's this concept where if you just... And compound interest isn't just with money, by the way. It's with effort. It's with blood, sweat, tears. It's with, if you're on the right path, you just carry on, and you stay in it long enough where you compound your skills and your experience. And if you do that for long enough, I truly believe if you're on the right path and you're smart about it, then everything comes full circle almost. And so you've just got to stay on the horse long enough for things to sort of pick up. And that's what happened with us. So we had PressCable. PressCable was a company where we had a piece of software that would write a press release very quickly. And of course, press releases need to be written in a specific way, but back then a lot of people were using them to get ranked quickly. Google was a different beast back then, different animal. And so to write a press release, people didn't know how to do it, but they wanted the distribution. But we tied together. We had distribution, and we had a quick wizard so you could fill out a form and bam, you've got a really well-structured press release written in the right way, and you've got the distribution at the click of a button, and you could do it on any topic. So you could focus for a local business. You could target certain keywords and things like that. So we did that and then as a result of that, we grew it. And then we turned that into AmpiFire back in 2018, 2019, I think it was now. And AmpiFire is the world's only platform that creates distributes content all in one app, one flow, on the biggest websites in the world. And the whole idea of that is there's three steps. Number one, you identify the questions that people have before making a buying decision in any business, any niche, and there's often thousands of underserved topics. I could talk about just that all day. That in itself is one of the biggest things that we offer. And we could build a company just on that, if I'm honest. But then the second part is once you've done the research... Because Chris was doing this for years. He was selling handbags just before I'd met him. Sold millions doing this strategy. Just finding these underserved topics that have less competition or manageable competition. The topics are in demand, which means someone's ready to buy, for example, yellow handbag, leather, inside pouch, double strap, whatever. That's a buyer. And he used to just relentlessly go after those words and nothing else, and there's less competition, of course, and then stack them up. So it's pretty cool. Anyway, the second step then is we answer those questions by repurposing content in the form of videos, articles, podcast, and it was snippets. It's now full interview style, which I'll talk about using AI, but it's topic based and sounds super real. The videos are shorts and reels, and then we've got infographics, flip books and blogs as well. And they all go to... I often repeat some of these. So if I've done that, then please excuse me. And then the third step is we have the distribution, which we've built over the years. And so that distribution then gets the content seen. And all of this together led us to create... Well, I'll talk about the impact in a second, but we then sort of moved on from AmpiFire to AmpCast now, which is what the latest version is. And AmpCast is like if you think about iPhone 16 or 17 versus iPhone 12, which is what AmpiFire was. So it's an upgrade. It's evolution. It's natural. But with the emergence of AI... You remember when I said stay on the horse long enough? That's kind of, even though we've got a long way to go, but it kind of feels like that now where we were doing well, don't get me wrong, but we are not in this for... I don't say penny change, but we're not in this for a certain amount. We want to blow this up. That was always the plan. And we've got an idea in mind of where we take it, and building the tech and everything and the development. We've got 80, 90 people now in the company, which is hard. It's hard to do, especially if you have some years where you dip, you need to keep the development and product going. It's difficult to do. But so that just shows you the commitment to growth. But now, AmpCast can actually everything I've described, but we've got the videos which are awesome because we can now post as reels on TikTok, on Instagram. We've got Pinterest that we've added as distribution as well on the image side, and I think I'm missing one. We've got LinkedIn. We've got YouTube Shorts as well. So everything. So one-stop shop. But the difference is a lot of people start with content. I think a lot of people are told, yeah, you need to post videos and do articles and be consistent, all this stuff you hear, but they've got it the wrong around. What are you creating content on? There's billion dollar businesses I've seen with my own eyes that have killed themselves, because they're doing things the wrong way by creating what we call content bloat. And if you're one of these people, please stop. I don't care who you've heard this from, it doesn't work because you have to do content in the right way. So instead of starting with content first, videos, yeah, let's get out there. No. What are you doing the content on? So the first step is always the topics, because SEO is dead. It's been taken behind the garden shed and shot in the head. Unfortunately, it's finished. People, they don't want to accept this, but I speak to SEO experts all the time from multimillion dollar businesses that we work with on the managed service side now, and they have to admit because the future is in answering questions, but answering them in a really, really compelling way, which has the user in mind. So you can't just answer a question. You know what I mean? There's so many layers to it, but if you think about it, it's a beautiful thing because it's going back to how it should be. It's like almost how our parents and grandparents... I don't know about you, but the way I was raised is always think about the ancestors and think about the way things were done. Even now with food and stuff, they're like... In the US for instance, they're like the average American diet in the 60s was amazing. They had mashed potatoes regardless of what your views are on carbs, but still a clean source of food. Still clean. It's from the ground. Bam. They had veg and they had meat, and that's what they ate. And then they had tripe and things like this, which still decent for you, the organ meat and stuff. Post-World War II, that's what they had to do. But the point is, everybody talks about that. There's this general feeling of returning to how things used to be because things are getting out of hand. Look at kids nowadays. There's always complaints. Oh, they're on their phones all day. And back in my day, everyone has that feeling and that sentiment. And so with the content, the reason I'm raising that and it's connected is because even with content, it's like you're going back to actually serving the market. So think about your content as serving the market. And if you wouldn't read it and it's not going to give you what you need in terms of answers, don't post it. Because all you're doing is giving Google more and more reasons to penalise you and cap your traffic. And that's the way it should be, because all these shortcuts with SEO and all this stuff, I think it's just... It never sat right with me, how you can game the system, and obviously not with Google either, because it shouldn't be the one who cheats the system and pretends to get... It's almost like fake likes on Instagram and all this kind of stuff. But it should be the best business that's actually serving the marketplace. Because if you're creating more and more content, which actually serves the market, and you're taking the time to do that, then by proxy, you are naturally going to end up being a better company. It kind of makes sense because if you take that much care to educate the market, you're going to probably have a superior product, service and delivery.

Editor:

Because when I've heard you speak before, Jay, you've said content is the new currency. I think a lot of people have maybe misunderstood that and they think, okay, in that case, I just need to pump out as much content as I can. But what you're saying is actually no, focus first of all on what that content is going to be, and structure that so that it serves the person who's searching for that content. Am I right in thinking that?

Jay Cruiz:

100%. And I'd go as far as saying AI will kill your business faster than it builds it. Let me repeat that so people can understand. And really, it hits home because it will save you a lot of money and a lot of headache. AI will kill your business faster than it builds it if you don't know what you're doing. And a prime example of that, because people nowadays with AI, if my next door neighbour has AI and the elderly lady down the road, bless her, never picked up her laptop properly, has got AI, we've all got the same advantage. If she uses the same prompt, she'll get the same response. Or if she says, "Write me an article on gardening," and I do the same thing and my next door neighbour does the same thing and you do the same thing, what are we going to get? Exactly the same thing. And when I say that to people, they're like, "Oh yeah, you're right." I'm like, so what's the difference then? The difference is the bar has been raised, and it's not coming down ever again. What that means is the way that you do content, the way you use AI and interact with it, has changed forever. And if you don't keep up, you're going to get left behind. And that's what's happening with businesses. And the prime example, I call it the Shakespeare test. If Shakespeare had a laptop and I've got my laptop and we're both using ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or whatever you want, Claude is always good for marketing stuff. But do you think Shakespeare is going to produce better quality than me? Obviously. Obviously if we both wrote a play, he's going to kill me because of his methodologies, because of what he's going to input, because of his years and years of notes that he's going to feed in and create these beautiful prompts and the way that he likes to think and do stuff. And so that's the way you've got to think about your content. But going back to my main point, slightly digressed there, but the whole idea is this. If you create (beep) content, you're get... Google is going to give you (beep). So an example of that is a company called Jasper. So I met the CEO of Jasper a few years back now. When I met him, he was... Well, they valued the business at $1 billion back then, because they were one of the first to market as an AI content creation software and business. And they were absolutely destroying it, doing really well, taking the world by storm and all that kind of stuff. Where do you think that business is now? And yes, you might have the whole "Well, there's more competition." Fine, but they had clear and distinct advantage. So yeah, there might be competition, but it should be manageable for them because they should be able to evolve with it. And by the way, for the record, at that exact moment, they had $130 million in investment. Their traffic has fallen off a cliff. They are massacring their own business. Why? Well, when you go to their blog and you see the kind of content and pages they're adding to their site, it's very generic, number one. So you'll see stuff like, "Oh, the top AI trends of 2025." Who the (beep) gives a (beep) about that? No one, because it's not answering any questions. It's not helping anybody to make a decision to make a buying, to get closer to buying anything or to solve a problem, like I said. So that's your first problem. And the more content you create like that, the more Google's like, "Hmm. De-index, de-index, de-index." And then if you keep doing it, Google will penalise you. And then you're (beep). Then it's going to take you years to come back. You'll need a full content audit. You need to strip away the crap and rewrite stuff. So it's a big job. But there's a secondary thing where they double down against themselves. And you know what that is? They're using AI for the content. And when you run it through zerogpt.com, which is a detector for AI content, it came out as like 96% or 97% some of their articles. Because I was just investigating. I was curious. Because I was like, "Oh, where are they at?" And I was like, "Oh, my God. Are you kidding me? Jasper 2?" Literally, they're nose diving with their traffic and they're not going to be able to come back. And their pages are being de-indexed at a rapid rate. And so they're using AI, massacring their business. And the funny thing is, this started about two years ago and they haven't stopped. I checked July last month, and they had another crappy, terrible generic article that was badly written without the user in mind and just AI spam.

Editor:

So what's the antidote to that? I mean, obviously, it's an interesting phenomenon that we've had where people have rushed towards AI. They've been typing in their prompts, as you say. They've been taking the content, copy, paste, stick that up as a blog post. And then that's now damaging them as opposed to actually helping them grow their business.

Jay Cruiz:

100%. There was another business, I can't say their name because we don't have their permission, but one of our clients on the managed side... Because we have two parts of the business. We have software. Standard software, you come in, you use the platform, you get content, you publish it everywhere. You grow your organic traffic. And you cover these topics and questions, and it's all built into the platform. And there's no platform out there that can do all of that in one flow. You might have a video editor. You might have an AI thing that can do infographics for you, but you have to log in. Then you have to integrate. Then you have to find a way to distribute it. So we've got the whole thing. But the other side of our business is because a lot of the people that came through the SaaS side were like, they have lots of money. And they're like, you know what guys... And these guys are spending $1, $2, $3 million a month on paid ads quite often. Big, big brands. And so they're saying to us, look, you guys just take the organic. We don't want to have to worry about it. And we didn't want to do it at first because we wanted to remain a SaaS business. But then we looked at the market and we're like, actually, lots of people are doing this. There are lots of bigger companies in the SaaS space are coming out with this hybrid approach. And so we started the manage service, but we had very strict criteria of businesses doing at least $1 million minimum to even consider bring them on a year. And they have to be spending a certain amount on paid ads and demonstrate that their site is actually functioning and doing well. So anyway, when we started doing that, we bought on this... That was about two, three years ago, and it's blown up since because every single time we take a business, we choose them knowing that we can actually have that impact. And there's lots of factors like the demand online and the AOV, which is their average order value, and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, there's a big brand that came on board and they booked a call with us about three or four months ago. This is going to answer your question directly by the way, but coming in directly first, but it will finish directly. But it's important to contextualise. So these guys, I'd say about four or five months ago, safety, they came on and they're a big musical instrument business in the US. And it's an econ business, and they're a massive brand in the US. If I said their name, a lot of people will know who they are. So they came to us and they went, "Guys, I'm going to be honest with you. We don't know what the (beep) is going on with our traffic. Please help us." And so me and Chris both on the call, we looked online and we were supporting one of our sales guys. We were training him. But because we saw the brand, we really wanted this brand on board. So we were like, "(beep) it. We're just going to jump in." So it was like three-man hit squad right on this call. It was really funny. But they also had quite a few people. It's a big business. So they jumped on and we were like, okay, don't worry. Calm down, let's have a look. So what happened with them is their traffic had halved over the last year. Halved. From half a million visitors a month going down to less than 200,000. So more than half a month on average. Now you might think, well, they've still got 200,000 visitors a month. That's not bad. Well, when your AOV and your average order value is... And for them it's around two, $3,000, I think. That's a lot of (beep) business to lose, especially as a big brand. And they couldn't figure it out. And so we went, all right, let's take a look at this. We jumped in and guess what? Because you'd think, oh, people should know better with AI. They should know how to use AI content and do it properly. They fell into the same crap you just discussed. Do loads of content, we've got AI, let's go. Yeah. Let's launch the ships. Boom, happy days. We can now produce a piece of content every 10 seconds. And when we looked, we were just horrified and we were like, "We need to gut a lot of this for you." And they were like, do what you need to do. They signed up for 12 grand a month. Imagine that's how big the problem was. If you've got $1 million problem, you can charge that amount. It's probably higher than that for them. Anyway. So in answer to your question, what we said to them was, "Listen, guys. You need to"... Number one, as we explained it to them, like your headlines are terrible. Never ever, ever create content unless you're answering one specific question. An example of that would be, let's say you've got a roofing business. Because roofs in the states actually do really well. On average, it's like 50 grand a roof. That's one sale. So sometimes if they're good, they go up to 100 grand with upsells and stuff. But instead of saying, right, here's the 10 things you need to do to keep your roof in good nick in 2025. You'll see there's guaranteed to be about a thousand articles like that right now online, right? No, don't do that because it's not answering any questions. And when someone starts reading it, if they get there in the first place, they're not going to stay on. And if they bounce and enough people bounce that shows Google that it's not a useful piece of content. But also, again, I'm not going to type that in because I'm not going to start looking at roofs unless I have what? I've got a problem, and I need a solution. And so one article could be, what is asphalt roofing? Literally. What is asphalt roofing? Or asphalt roofing versus Slate? I'm not a roofing specialist, but you get my point. Or what is algae resistant shingles? Are algae resistant shingles worth it? And by the way, that's not two topics in one article. These are all articles where you create long form, beautiful content answering that exact query. And now, you know why people don't do that? Because it takes a long time, but because it takes a long time, if you do do it and you've got, let's say, 100 articles like that on your site, Google's going to go, that's my guy. They're give (beep) about their audience. They're dedicated to helping a marketplace, and they're giving Google content to put on the front page where often Google hasn't got anything to put on the front page. And they know people are searching. And that's Google's worst nightmare because Google is ask a question, give an answer quickly, especially now, and I'll get to the AI in a second. So the solution is simple. It's make sure you answer the topics properly and give love to your content. And that doesn't mean you don't use AI, it just means learn how to use AI properly where you've got the user in mind, you structure things the right way, keep the consistency the same, even seen examples where people have content where it's completely different fonts and layouts, and one piece is this long, one piece is this long, another piece is this long, one piece has got different headings, things like that. Google hates all that because it shows, again, you're not focused on that strategy. You're not trying to actually deliver for your audience. In other words, you're trying to shortcut the system. So even if you're using AI, and that's what we do with our platform, is we have an entire process where a 15-year-old methodology of how to create the right or how to find the right topics, how to create the right content with key takeaways at the top, things like that. Image placement, headlines. I can't go through the whole thing, but that gives you an idea. But honestly, even if you just took my advice there and you created a piece of content answering a very specific question and posted it in as many places as you could, including the website, that will help you infinitely. And you did that every day, even if you did it manually for goodness' sake. But you don't need to because you've got AI. But just answer the query and just look at examples of businesses, and their traffic is blowing up and you'll see a good blog. Sorry, the last thing I'll say on that is just to reframe this, don't look at it as a blog, look at it as a learning centre. And that should help with reframing. Sorry, go ahead. What was your question?

Editor:

No, that's really, really good advice. I was just going to ask, and maybe this is my last question, but I was just going to ask... I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase this.

Jay Cruiz:

No worries.

Editor:

So would you say, Jay, that even if you are using AI, and a lot of people have just almost embraced it and it's the one thing that drives their content creation, you are saying that it needs to be that mix. It needs to be human intelligence as well as artificial intelligence. And you need to combine those two things, and you need to eyeball it, and sense, check it, before you publish it. You shouldn't just create and publish.

Jay Cruiz:

100%. So the hype, if you look at any expert right now, so if you look at the Neil Patel's of this world, because here's the other thing, people look at content marketing and think, should I? Shouldn't I? Content marketing has got the best ROI. Hands down. It's not even a debate. I don't care how much you're spending on paid ads, how much you're spending on whatever marketing you're doing, but people don't do it. Why? Because it takes a long time or it takes expertise, which is understandable. Yeah, I get that. But the reason someone's sitting in the shade today, I think someone said famously, is because they planted a tree two years ago. And so what happens with that tree is your paid ads, raw ads goes up. Any marketing effort, your return exponentially goes up because you've got the content marketing constantly building. And the cool thing about content is with paid ads, if you stop paying, what happens to the business? The revenue stops. Whereas with content marketing, it doesn't because you are building constantly. So last year, if I did 200 pieces of content, this year, I did another 200 pieces, I've got 400 pieces. It's something almost tangible. It's like brick by brick, you can see it building. And of course, that's going to have an impact on your traffic and your sales, because the more places you're in, and then of course, if you can do it in the form of videos and articles and social posts and whatever at the same time, it's going to help you grow. But yeah, so I would say you have to have that hybrid approach. Any expert will tell you that. The Neil Patel's of the world, content marketing specialist will tell you that, all the way through to the CEO of Google, who very famously recently said, the future, if you want to market yourself and you want to do content and you want to grow, you have to do it in a cross-platform, cross-channel way. That's the only way to do it now. And so there's a mixture of things here. So I would say if you're creating content, yes, you can leverage AI, but it has to be hybrid. But just sense check it, like you said. And the question is, is this actually helping someone to make a decision? That's it. Would you read that piece of content and think, right, this is helpful? So as an example, really quickly, just to finish this off, let's say... Because we do lots and lots of pieces of content now to explain this idea of the buyer journey, and we work with medical businesses across the US and stuff like this as well. And so if you think about it, if someone... In fact, I'll give you an example from hot off the press. So I spoke to one of the sales guys, I should say, had a call with a company selling oxygen concentrators. It was an e-commerce store. Again, I can't give you the name, but he's looking to sign up with us on the managed side. And I was training the sales guy again, but I couldn't help it. You know what? You can probably get a sense of what I'm like on this call. I can't help it. So I jumped in on the call and I said, "Look, Matt, just give me a second. Let me ask Fran a couple of questions." So I jumped in and I said, "Fran," that was the name of the business owner. I'm like, "Listen, I've got a bunch of questions." He goes, "No problem." And that business is doing 20 million a year, but he wants to do... He was actually the market leader. He's been taken over by someone who's done guess what? Content. Guess how long? The last two years. You planted the tree and now he's sitting under the shade. And so Fran's going, he's beside himself, because he's like, "What are they doing? I need to know." So I was like, "Let's take a look." And I went on his website and I was like, "Look, some of your blogs are good. Some of your content's good. Your videos are good. But again, they're erring on the side of being generic." And he goes, "Well, what do you mean? I go limp. Answer this question for me." And I'll invite anyone watching this to do the same thing in your business, your service, whether you're selling stuff or to businesses or doing it yourself on the content side is, "What questions, Fran, do people ask you before they make a buying decision with any of your products?" And he's like, "(beep) me, that is brilliant." And I'm like, "Thank you very much." No, but in all seriousness, I was like, "Look, I've been doing this for a long time. That's why I'm asking." And he goes, "Well, damn. They say stuff like... Well, smokers will be like, '10-year smoker. How to clear lungs quickly?' That's one question." And I'm like, "Well, there's one article. Have you got something like that?" "No, I don't." "Okay, what else do you get asked?" He's like, "How to increase my V̇O2 max without exercise?" Almost impossible. VO2 max is just how well your body processes, I think, oxygen or whatever. I'm not an expert, but I'm into fitness and stuff, so I get it. All the way through to what are the best exercises to increase your VO2 max? I'm like, "Okay. Do you have any of these?" And he's like, "(beep), I get it. How much?" But it's like that. It's like that. So that's how I would do it. But then you can use AI to help you with that to do the hybrid sort of approach. I mean, I wouldn't use ChatGPT and stuff like that for topics. Because you can type in a business and say, what topics or questions do people have typically before they make a buying decision? And then you've got content, and you can just focus on them. But I actually have, if you wanted to on our website, I don't know if I'm allowed to do this, but you can let know, but we've got this headline. We call it Headline Pig, because it sniffs the riches and the niches. But it's quite funny. But it's a free tool. You can use it on our site, you can put it in any business you want, and it will give you all the topics based on our... There's about six or seven processes that lead up to that, that we've built in using our methodology. But it will give you topics that are in demand, low competition and will bring people into their buy journey. So everything I've just described.

Editor:

It's fascinating stuff, Jay. I mean, I'm sure you and I could talk for hours about this. But if someone is listening today who wants more exposure, they want more traffic, and perhaps even they want more credibility, where should they go to find out more about the services that you offer?

Jay Cruiz:

Yeah, yeah. So we have a waitlist on AmpCast right now, but AmpCast is, like I said, we've just launched it recently, but that's going to be our big thing to go mainstream with. But we have ampifire.com. That's our main website, but you can check out ampcast.ai as well. And with ampcast.ai, you can leave your details if you want more information, and we'll put you on the waitlist for more updates on that. Or you can just check out ampifire.com to see what we have now. So that's the iPhone 12 and 16 together. So you can take a look and see what's coming. But yeah, the other cool thing is, the reason I'm saying ampifire.com is because if you go there, there's a lot of material, a lot of stuff on our blog, which you will find mad, mad, mad valuable if you want to create content and if you want to be less dependent on paid ads or grow any sort of business, even if you're starting out. If you start out the right way now, and this is the last thing I was going to say, sorry I forgot to mention this, but if you content in the way that I've described and you're in more places and you repurpose to be on LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube and you've got all these different types of content, what happens is the LLMs have no choice but to reference you. And the more content you create and the more places you're in, the more likely it is to reference you as the business or service or product when someone asks a very specific question on AI. And we've proven this. We've got lots of people who are just... They're getting lots of results now with AI, because with our platform, obviously... Whether you do this yourself or use our platform, it's fine. But our platform does it on every major site in every major format. And so that's what I would look at doing is just do as much content as you can in as many places as you can. And if you want to check out more info on that, you can look at our blog. So it's future-proof and yeah, it's exciting times, man. As you can tell, I'm quite amped.

Editor:

Absolutely.

Jay Cruiz:

Part of the plan, but yeah.

Editor:

Well, great to speak with you, Jay. Really appreciate your time today, and thank you for taking us through what is effectively the future now of marketing for many businesses. It's been an absolute fascinating conversation. So thank you again for your time.

Jay Cruiz:

Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.