The KeyHire Small Business Podcast

Welcome to the Award Winning KeyHire Solutions Small Business Podcast, where we cover small business issues, including leadership development, hiring strategies, management structure, business growth, workplace culture, entrepreneurship, and more. We’re here to help you stop grinding and start growing. Join us for weekly chats about small business management with Corey Harlock, our organization design, candidate experience, talent acquisition, and employer branding expert, and CEO of KeyHire Solutions. As an entrepreneur, Corey understands the challenges that business owners face when scaling their businesses. Follow Corey on LinkedIn @CoreyHarlock Join our Mailing List @ keyHire.Solutions (http://keyHire.Solutions)

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  The KeyHire Small Business Podcast

  Why Your Best Salesperson Should Out-Earn You (with Stefan Boehmer)

  Aug 17, 202648 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If your best salesperson is out-earning you, that is not a problem to fix. That is the plan working. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Stefan Boehmer, Managing Director and Fractional CFO of Texas Advisory Services, to tackle one of the trickiest parts of building a sales team: the compensation plan. If you have ever struggled to land those big killer salespeople who love to close and make money, the comp plan is often the make-or-break piece. And as this conversation shows, getting it right does not have to be complicated. Stefan brings a CFO’s discipline to a topic that gives many small business owners heartburn. Early on, he lays out the foundation: SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Just as important, he argues, the goals should be personal and something the individual can actually influence. If your operations person cannot impact a company-wide number, it does not make sense to tie their incentive to it. A big part of the episode is the distinction between business development and account management. Corey and Stefan break down why these are two very different roles that attract two very different people. Some salespeople love the hunt and the adrenaline of landing new business. Others thrive on relationships, upselling, and nurturing accounts over time. They also explore how the length of the sales cycle matters, and why a fast transactional seller can fail in a long-tail relationship role, and vice versa. From there, the conversation gets practical. Stefan walks through the KPIs he would incentivize for each role, from number of leads and conversion rates for BD to order intake, gross margin, and expanding the footprint for account managers. One of the most surprising takeaways is that he weights account managers more heavily than business development, because relationships are future-oriented and difficult to duplicate if that person leaves. He even shares a story of an account manager who worked a deal for nine years and walked away with a million-dollar payout, and why that check should be honored, not resented. Corey drives home a principle he repeats often: there should be no voodoo in the math. Every salesperson should be able to calculate to the penny what they earned, and it should match exactly what the owner pays out. The two also dig into when incentives should kick in, why quarterly payouts with an 80 percent achievement threshold protect the business, and how unit-based incentives can jumpstart new products or services. Perhaps the most valuable message is for owners who feel the sting of writing big commission checks. If you have a well-designed plan and someone is maximizing it while injecting real money into your business, do not scale it back just because they are making more than you. Stefan and Corey also call out the discretionary bonus as a trap, using a memorable story about a “generous” plan that left a top performer confused and underwhelmed. If you are a small business owner, sales leader, or entrepreneur trying to build a comp plan that attracts and retains top talent, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for a clear, practical conversation on sales compensation, incentive plans, KPIs, and building a team that keeps growing. KEY TAKEAWAYS Make the goals SMART and make them personal: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, and tied to something the individual can actually move. If a goal is company-wide only, it does not matter how well that person performs, so the incentive stops changing behavior. Business development and account management are two different jobs for two different people: hunters chase new relationships and cold calls, account managers nurture, upsell, and expand what is already there, and people always default to the one they are most comfortable with. Give each seat its own KPIs: BD gets number of leads and conversion rate with a minimum margin requirement, while account managers get order intake, gross margin, and expanding the footprint into new departments and add-on services. Weight account managers more heavily than BD: cold calling can be handed to a new employee, but a relationship built over years cannot be rebuilt, which is why the account manager who worked one deal for nine years and walked away with a million-dollar check earned every penny of it. No voodoo in the math: every salesperson should be able to calculate their payout to the penny and land on the same number the owner has, which is why Stefan avoids complicated or interlinked KPIs like cash flow that nobody can trace back to their own work. Pay quarterly, but not in Q1: an 80 percent achievement threshold before the first payout protects the business and keeps people hungry, with unpaid quarters accumulating forward, while unit-based add-ons for new products or services can pay out right away. Do not punish a plan that is working: adjust for a bigger territory or goals that were set wrong, but if someone is maximizing a well-built plan and injecting real money into the business, take a deep breath and write the check. And skip the discretionary bonus, which feels generous to the owner and underwhelming to the employee. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Stefan Boehmer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanboehmer/ Learn more about Texas Advisory Services: https://www.texas-advisory.com/ Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: why the comp plan makes or breaks your sales hire 5:05 – Stefan’s background and what Texas Advisory Services does 6:50 – SMART goals and why an incentive has to be personal 7:52 – Business development vs account management: two roles, two people 10:17 – Why the length of the sales cycle decides who succeeds 12:08 – No voodoo in the math 13:08 – The KPIs to incentivize on the business development side 15:36 – Behaviors, outcomes, and watching the early warning indicators 18:53 – Capping BD commission, and how high the cap should go 21:06 – Building the account manager plan: order intake, margin, footprint 23:16 – Why account managers get weighted more heavily than BD 24:32 – The nine-year deal and the million-dollar payout 28:06 – When incentives kick in: quarterly payouts and the 80 percent threshold 30:50 – Unit-based incentives for launching new products and services 33:20 – When your salesperson out-earns you, do not scale the plan back 38:48 – Why the discretionary bonus is a trap

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  The KeyHire Small Business Podcast

  Why Great Candidates Ghost You

  Aug 10, 202637 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock breaks down why so many small business owners take great candidates through their process only to watch them ghost before the final interview or the offer, and why candidate experience may be the most underused advantage a small business has. Corey’s core message is simple but often overlooked: candidates are customers too. Generating candidates has never been easier, between job boards and a thousand AI sourcing tools. What happens after you find them is what decides whether you land them. And as a small business, you are not Google. The people applying to your job have never heard of you, they are interviewing at several other companies, and they are there to be educated on you as much as you are there to evaluate them. If you are excited about a candidate, at least one other company is too, which means you are already on the clock. The episode focuses on three challenges. The first is hiring speed. Corey makes an important distinction: speed to hire is not about rushing, it is about using the correct process for the role and then holding the timeline. A CNC operator who walks in, passes a shop floor test, and shows they know the machine should have an offer before they leave the building. A manager or director role should move from first contact to offer within about ten business days. He explains why entry level candidates come off the market almost immediately, and why rescheduling an interview because you are busy tells a great candidate they are an inconvenience. If a client asked for time tomorrow, would you push them to next week? The second challenge is the hiring system. Corey emphasizes consistency, the same people asking the same questions in the same order, and shares the one question that tells you whether someone belongs in the process at all: if you love the candidate and they do not, will you hire the candidate anyway? He also gives a sharp warning about C players, toxic high performers, and anyone who hates accountability, because they will either scare a candidate off or sabotage the interview outright. From there he walks through the peer to peer conversation that is a problem solving discussion rather than an interrogation, the owner interview that focuses on culture, and the power of giving candidates the good, the bad, and the ugly. Selling a future culture you have not built yet breaks trust on day one. Honesty gets you a hell yes or a hell no, and keeps you away from the amber flag maybe. The third challenge is ownership. Corey argues that screening resumes should not fall on the business owner, especially now that AI tools make nearly every resume look polished and every phone screen look worth taking. He shows how to hand screening to a trusted team member armed with ten or twelve clear non-negotiables and a scoring threshold, so owners protect their time while the process keeps moving. Once a candidate is on site, though, nobody gets to say they are busy this week. This episode is especially valuable for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and hiring managers who are competing for high quality talent, losing candidates late in the process, or trying to build a repeatable hiring system. Corey also points listeners to a free hiring assessment in the show notes, a 15 question tool that takes about three minutes and reports back where your process is strong and where it is costing you. Your sales process is designed to close business. Your hiring process should be designed to close people. Tune in for a practical, numbers backed conversation on candidate experience, hiring speed, interview systems, and how to stop losing the people your business needs. Stop grinding, start growing. KEY TAKEAWAYS Candidates are customers too: 83% of talent says a negative experience can change their mind about a company they liked, 87% say a positive one can win them over to a company they doubted, and 66% say it directly influences whether they accept an offer. Generating candidates is the easy part: job boards and AI sourcing tools will find people for you. Nothing about your process after that point is automated, and that is where great candidates are won or lost. They have never heard of you: in a market with more jobs than people, it is not the candidate’s job to research you. It is your job to make the case, and to assume that anyone you are excited about is excited by someone else too. Speed to hire is not rush, rush, rush: it is picking the correct process for the role and then staying on the timeline. Entry level gets an offer before they walk out the door. Manager and director level is ten business days from first contact. Every reschedule sends a message: pushing an interview because you are busy tells a candidate they are an inconvenience, and it previews what working there will feel like. If you have to move it, offer them something better, not a slot next week. Same people, same questions, same order, and only your A players: if you would hire the candidate over someone’s objection, that person does not belong in the process. Never put a C player, a toxic high performer, or anyone who hates accountability in front of a candidate you want. Give them the good, the bad, and the ugly: selling a culture you are still building breaks trust on day one. Every job is perfect for someone, so put everything on the table and aim for a hell yes or a hell no. The amber flag maybe is the worst outcome in hiring. Screening is not the owner’s job: AI written resumes make everyone look qualified, so screening costs more time than it ever has. Hand it to someone you trust with ten or twelve non-negotiables and a scoring threshold, and protect your calendar for the interviews that matter. LINKS & RESOURCES Free hiring assessment, 15 questions in about three minutes: https://www.keyhire.solutions/scorecard Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Why great candidates ghost you 0:35 - Show intro 1:23 - Housekeeping, and two episodes worth going back for 2:34 - Candidates are customers too: 83%, 87%, 66% 3:27 - Generating candidates is the easy part 5:29 - You are not Google, and they have never heard of you 6:49 - They are on a recon mission, not there to sell you 7:58 - Challenge one: hiring speed 8:23 - The correct process for an entry level role 10:21 - Manager and director: ten business days 11:29 - Every reschedule burns your clock 12:09 - Would you push a client to next week? 13:34 - How to move a meeting without losing the candidate 14:17 - Speed is not rush, rush, rush 14:35 - Challenge two: the hiring system 15:31 - Who to include, and the question that decides it 17:00 - Never put a C player in front of a candidate 18:51 - Same people, same questions, same order 20:16 - The peer conversation, not an interrogation 20:44 - The owner interview is about culture 21:15 - Do not sell a culture you have not built yet 22:35 - The good, the bad, and the ugly 24:16 - Every job is perfect for someone 24:59 - The amber flag maybe 25:53 - Challenge three: who owns the process 26:17 - AI resumes mean everyone looks good 26:37 - Non-negotiables and a scoring threshold 28:22 - Everyone makes time, especially for the on site 30:15 - Your process is a preview of what it is like to work there 31:00 - Close candidates the way you close deals 31:16 - The free 15 question hiring assessment 31:58 - If 80% of a process was wasted, would you keep it? 33:03 - Closing thoughts

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  The KeyHire Small Business Podcast

  1 in 3 Job Posts Are Fake: The Candidate Harvesting Trap (with Katrina Kibben)

  Aug 3, 202649 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. One in four US employers are now using AI in their hiring. And one in three job posts are not real jobs at all. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with keynote speaker, LinkedIn Top Voice, and bestselling author Kat Kibben to unpack why AI recruiting is really a math problem that most companies are getting wrong. Kat has spent more than 15 years helping organizations like Zoom, Monster, and Olly write better job posts and navigate hiring with confidence, with work featured in the New York Times, NPR, and Forbes. Kat's core message is simple but powerful: AI cannot find what you cannot define. And most businesses, especially small businesses, have a definition problem. When you never clearly outline what you are looking for, every step that follows, from interview questions to scorecards to the first ninety days, is built on a shaky foundation. Early in the conversation, Corey and Kat find instant common ground on the number one mistake business owners make when they hire. They do not define the role. Instead, they build what Corey calls a wish list, a job description packed with responsibilities no single person could ever handle. Kat explains that a strong job post is not about industry or seniority. It comes down to four categories of information: aptitude and the tools you use, teamwork and who you work with, who you present ideas to, and autonomy or whether you can do the work on your own. Both admit their own hiring record proves the point, with Kat noting that even as a recruiting expert running a recruiting business, only one in four early hires was the right one. From there, the discussion moves into how AI is reshaping recruiting and hiring, for better and for worse. Kat ran a head to head test of the major large language models, feeding each one identical information and asking for a job post. The results hallucinated a location that did not exist, invented an inaccurate pay range, and exaggerated requirements back into old school formats, because these tools are trained on decades of flawed job postings. Kat warns that AI is a tone thief, and explains why prioritizing speed over results leads to biased screening, rejection loops, and lawsuits. The episode also takes a fascinating and slightly alarming turn into candidate harvesting, fake job posts, and the rise of fraudulent candidates. Kat walks through activity now being investigated by the FBI and CIA, where foreign agencies mirror the job postings of well known American companies to collect resumes, then send AI backed candidates into interviews at large organizations to steal entire code bases and client lists. Corey shares his own firsthand experience interviewing three separate candidates who all listed the same three companies, every one of which turned out to be a fake website. What makes this conversation so valuable is how practical it stays. Kat and Corey agree that great hiring is a discipline, not a gut decision, and that most owners get it right only one in three or one in four times. They dig into how to build interview scorecards from a well defined job post, why you have to define what a good answer sounds like before you ever ask the question, why communication and timeline transparency keep top candidates engaged, and how findable job titles help the right people discover your role. If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, or leader trying to use AI in your hiring process without falling into expensive traps, this episode is a must listen. Tune in for a smart, data backed conversation on job postings, AI recruiting, candidate screening, and why defining what you want is still the most important hiring decision you will ever make. Stop grinding, start growing. KEY TAKEAWAYS AI cannot find what you cannot define: the job post sits at the bottom of everything, and if you get it wrong, your interview questions, your screening decisions, and your six month performance benchmarks are all built on nothing. You are writing a wish list, not a job post: a job post exists so that anyone reading it can say a clear yes or a clear no, and if unqualified people keep applying, the post was never clear enough to let them decide. Four categories make a job post work: the tools you use and how you use them, who you work with, who you present ideas to, and whether you can do the work autonomously. Not years of experience, not degrees, not detail oriented. AI is a tone thief trained on bad data: in a head to head test of the major models with identical inputs, one invented a location that did not exist, one added an inaccurate pay range, and all of them reformatted requirements back into the old templates they were trained on. Speed is not a benchmark of success: time to fill measures things you do not control, and when you anchor people to time, they start rejecting anyone scored below an eight. That checkbox looks like efficiency and can get you sued. Your job post is an attack surface: one in three postings are not real jobs, foreign agencies mirror well known company postings to harvest resumes, and fraudulent candidates have used deepfake video to get hired and walk out with code bases and client lists. Define what a good answer sounds like before you ask the question: if you skip that step, you will default to whoever communicates most comfortably, which is bias, not assessment. Findability is free and almost nobody does it: Google your job title alongside the word resume. If the resumes you would hire do not come up, nobody is going to find your role. LINKS & RESOURCES Kat Kibben's company, Three Ears Media: https://threeearsmedia.com/ Connect with Kat Kibben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinakibben/ Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: one in four employers use AI, one in three job posts are fake 1:06 - Housekeeping and today's guest 2:34 - Kat's background and how job posts became the whole problem 4:34 - The number one mistake: you never defined the role 5:10 - What a job post is actually for 6:12 - The four categories every job post needs 7:48 - Hiring is a discipline, and the experience gap owners never close 9:07 - Even a hiring expert gets it wrong three out of four times 9:54 - Why using AI to recruit is a math problem 10:33 - AI cannot find what you cannot define 12:49 - Hiring for current revenue instead of future revenue 14:01 - AI is a tone thief: the battle of the LLMs 15:55 - Speed over results, and the screening checkbox that gets you sued 18:05 - Losing good candidates to your own calendar 19:12 - Publish your timeline before you post the job 21:14 - Why owners freeze on the final decision 22:02 - Define it up front so you know it when you see it 23:11 - Turning the job post into your interview scorecard 24:10 - What happens when you wing the interview 25:09 - Define what a good answer sounds like 26:42 - 37% quit in the first 90 days 27:42 - Using AI on interview questions means going line by line 27:56 - LLMs are not smart, they are word predictors 30:05 - Talk back to the tool 30:34 - The good enough culture that sunk hiring 31:30 - AI optimized resumes and the easy apply problem 32:32 - When 90% of your applicants look great 33:41 - Fake jobs, fake candidates, and the FBI investigation 36:08 - Corey's story: three candidates, three fake companies 37:38 - The deepfake test: turn your head to the left 38:21 - Indeed's agents and the monolithic algorithm problem 40:10 - Rejection loops that follow candidates across companies 41:35 - Actionable advice: spend your time on the job post 42:53 - Findability, and why made up job titles hurt you 43:48 - Results over speed 46:36 - Where to find Kat 47:25 - Corey's closing thoughts on how long hiring actually takes

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  The KeyHire Small Business Podcast

  Your Best Employee Is About to Quit — And It's Because of This One Meeting (with Steven Rogelberg)

  Jul 27, 202637 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. Nearly half of all one-on-one meetings are considered suboptimal by the employees sitting in them, even when management thinks they went great. The meeting you keep canceling might be the one holding your team together. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Dr. Steven Rogelberg, Chancellor's Professor of Organizational Science, Management, and Psychology at UNC Charlotte and the world's leading scholar on meetings, to talk about why the one-on-one is the most overlooked and most powerful tool in a leader's arsenal. Steve is the author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of One-on-One Meetings, a research-backed guide that reframes the one-on-one from a calendar item into a driver of engagement, retention, and performance. And as he explains, it matters even more for small businesses. When you have 20 people and one quits, 5% of your staff just walked out the door. The turnover a 100,000-person company can absorb is genuinely disruptive to a team of 20. Early in the conversation, Corey and Steve define what a one-on-one actually is, and just as importantly, what it is not. It is not a status update meeting that serves the manager. It is not the place to discipline someone or drop them onto a performance plan. A true one-on-one is orchestrated by the manager but built for the employee, a designated space where the employee sets the agenda and feels genuinely seen. Steve shares research showing that employees who experience meaningful one-on-ones are more engaged, provide better customer service, help their peers more, stay longer, and even work more safely on the job. One of the most counterintuitive ideas in this episode is that doing one-on-ones well actually gives leaders time back. A regular cadence means employees save their issues for the scheduled meeting instead of interrupting all day, fewer mistakes need expensive fixing, and your top talent stops leaving. Steve also tackles the fear many owners and newer managers feel: if I am not talking, am I showing my value? His answer, backed by data, is blunt. The more the manager talks, the lower the ratings of effectiveness. Competence is displayed through actions, and the one-on-one is where leaders flex a different muscle entirely: listening, curiosity, and interpersonal trust. He even explains the neuroscience of why talking is so hard to stop, since talking a lot activates the same parts of the brain as good food and sex. Corey and Steve dig into the traps small business owners fall into, from replacing an employee's idea with their own to disempowering the very people who could become ambassadors for the business. Corey lays out the math on turnover that should scare every owner: a DIY hire succeeds only 25 to 33% of the time, and replacing a top performer who knows your business is closer to a one in ten shot. Steve draws a memorable parallel to parenting and to Michael Jordan's career, showing how lifting others up is what made him truly great. He also walks through his six research-backed strategies: regularity, never canceling, talking less, letting employees drive the agenda, following up with backward calls to past conversations, and understanding the signals leaders send. Because when a manager chooses to skip the one-on-one, they are signaling that their people don't really matter. This episode is essential listening for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and new managers who want to improve employee engagement, boost retention, reduce turnover, and build a stronger leadership team. Whether you dread one-on-ones or simply have never had a system for them, Steve offers a practical, human, and surprisingly efficient approach. Listen in, then grab Glad We Met on Steve's website, where all proceeds are donated to the American Cancer Society. Stop grinding, start growing. KEY TAKEAWAYS A one-on-one is for the employee, not the manager: it is not a status update, not a discipline session, and not a performance plan; it is a designated time where the employee's agenda drives the conversation and they feel genuinely seen. Turnover hits small businesses harder: when you have 20 people and one quits, 5% of your staff just walked out, and Corey's math is worse than most owners think, with DIY hires succeeding only 25 to 33% of the time and top performers closer to one in ten to replace. Talking less makes you more effective: the research shows a direct relationship between how much a manager talks and how poorly the meeting is rated, and the three most powerful things out of your mouth are "help me understand," "tell me more," and "how can I support you." One-on-ones give you time back: a regular cadence means fewer daily interruptions because employees save issues for the meeting, fewer costly mistakes to fix, and less time lost to replacing talent you should have kept. Quality beats quantity, but regularity is non-negotiable: 15 or 20 fully dialed-in minutes every week or every other week gets you the benefits, and if you must move one, move it up rather than back, because canceling signals that your people don't matter. Don't replace your employee's idea with your own: unless you know for sure it's wrong and the consequences are serious, let it run; people grow through mistakes, and employees whose ideas gain traction become ambassadors and your best recruiters. LINKS & RESOURCES Steven Rogelberg's website and free resource library: https://stevenrogelberg.com Get Steve's book, Glad We Met: The Art and Science of One-on-One Meetings (all proceeds donated to the American Cancer Society): https://stevenrogelberg.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: half of all one-on-ones are failing and nobody says so 1:10 - Housekeeping: the BD sales funnel roundtable and today's guest 3:28 - Why owners avoid one-on-ones, and why small businesses can least afford to 4:37 - What a one-on-one actually is, and what it is not 6:48 - The counterintuitive part: good one-on-ones give you time back 8:27 - Not a discipline session: why invited feedback lands differently 9:43 - Talk less, listen more, and why your brain fights you on it 11:15 - Twenty focused minutes is enough 12:27 - Does listening make a new manager look weak? 16:14 - The turnover math: your odds of replacing a top performer 18:18 - One-on-ones at home: the parenting parallel 20:04 - Stop replacing your employees' ideas with your own 24:11 - Don't clone yourself: building ambassadors instead of bottlenecks 26:23 - The Michael Jordan switch 27:26 - The six strategies: regularity, never cancel, talk less, and signals 31:02 - Will the first meetings run long? The first-date rule 32:17 - No retribution: protecting the one-on-one as a safe space 33:45 - Where to find Steve, and why his book proceeds fight cancer 35:23 - Corey's closing thoughts on one-on-ones and your best people

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  The KeyHire Small Business Podcast

  AI Marketing Strategy: Why 88% of Marketers Are Doing It Backwards (with Sara Nay)

  Jul 20, 202641 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If tax season taught you anything, it's that doing more isn't the same as doing it right. The same is true for marketing in the age of AI. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing and author of Unchained: Breaking Free from Broken Marketing Models, to talk about why so many business owners are jumping straight to AI tools without a strategy to guide them. The numbers set the stage: 88% of marketers now use AI in their day-to-day roles, but most are leading with tools instead of a plan. Sara explains why that approach is exactly backwards. AI can be incredible for repurposing, drafting, and finalizing content, but only after you've done the harder work first: defining where your business is trying to go, understanding your ideal clients, and building the messaging that sets you apart. Skip that, and you end up with generic, over-polished “slop” that anyone could produce and that no one actually connects with. One of the most valuable threads in this conversation is authenticity. Sara shares how her most polished, perfectly structured LinkedIn posts consistently underperform, while her off-the-cuff rants take off. The lesson for small business owners is clear: in a noisy, AI-saturated market, being human, messy, and real is a competitive advantage. She also breaks down how to train AI properly using ideal client interviews, leadership input, and competitive research, so the content it creates genuinely sounds like you. The discussion moves naturally into hiring, where Corey and Sara find striking common ground. Sara explains why bringing in a single junior marketer and expecting them to be strategic, run every channel, and understand metrics is one of the most common and costly mistakes she sees. Corey connects it to a familiar hiring trap: hiring for today's revenue instead of tomorrow's, and hiring on potential without the systems to support it. As Sara puts it, “Don't throw good people at bad systems.” They also unpack why defining the role clearly and setting honest expectations matters just as much in marketing as it does in hiring. For business owners feeling overwhelmed, Sara offers a practical roadmap. She walks through the Duct Tape Marketing strategy process: auditing what's actually working, mapping the customer journey, building pillar and hub pages that rank in both Google and AI platforms, and running 90-day marketing sprints with real tracking in place. One client saved $40,000 in wasted spend in just three months simply by learning what was working and what wasn't. Her top advice: set up metrics you understand, know your ideal clients on a deep level, and don't overlook the back half of the funnel, including retention, repeat business, and referrals. This episode is especially valuable for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and fractional CMOs who want to use AI without losing their voice, stop wasting money on scattered marketing, and make smarter hiring decisions. If you're ready to put strategy before tactics and stop grinding to start growing, this conversation is a must-listen. KEY TAKEAWAYS Strategy comes before tools: 88% of marketers use AI, but leading with tools instead of a plan produces generic content anyone could make; define where the business is going, understand your ideal clients, and build differentiated messaging first. Authenticity outperforms polish: Sara's most perfectly structured LinkedIn posts consistently underperform, while her off-the-cuff rants take off, because in an AI-saturated market people connect with content that feels human and real. Train AI on you before you let it write: feed it ideal client interviews, leadership input, and competitive research, then hand it your own recorded thinking so the output actually sounds like you instead of generic slop. One junior marketer can't be the whole department: expecting a single early-career hire to set strategy, run every channel, and own the metrics is one of the most common and costly mistakes; a fractional lead plus specialists in each lane works far better. Don't throw good people at bad systems: undefined roles and hiring for today's revenue instead of tomorrow's set marketers up to fail, so define the role clearly and set honest expectations before anyone starts. Know what's actually working: one client saved $40,000 in wasted spend in three months just by tracking channels properly; set up metrics you understand, know your ideal clients deeply, and don't neglect retention, repeat business, and referrals. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Sara Nay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saranay/ Get Sara's book, Unchained: https://unchainedmodel.com Learn more about Duct Tape Marketing: https://ducttapemarketing.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: 88% of marketers use AI, but most skip the strategy 1:02 - Housekeeping: a listener comment on AI polish and hiring 3:19 - Meet Sara Nay and Duct Tape Marketing 4:33 - Is AI replacing marketers? Why strategy still comes first 6:15 - Why polished posts flop and off-the-cuff rants take off 7:58 - Training AI properly so the content sounds like you 11:49 - What “strategy before tactics” actually looks like 14:49 - The real cost of doing marketing without knowing what works 17:56 - Zone of genius: starting small with fractional help 20:22 - The junior-marketer mistake: one hire can't do it all 23:52 - The two biggest hiring mistakes owners make 26:46 - Hiring for your stage: builders vs. process-followers 30:25 - Tactical mistakes: doing everything, tracking nothing 32:34 - Content that ranks: hub pages and pillar topics 35:15 - Top advice: metrics, ideal clients, and the back half of the funnel 37:31 - Where to find Sara, plus Corey's closing thoughts on hiring

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