Turning Your Website Into a Revenue-Driving Business Asset with Paige Wiese
In this episode, host Kami Guildner sits down with Paige Wiese, founder of Tree Ring Digital and a trusted authority on websites, digital strategy, and treating your online presence like a core part of your business infrastructure rather than an afterthought.
Together, they explore what is actually moving the needle in digital marketing today, where businesses unknowingly lose revenue through underperforming websites, and why managing digital access and ownership is just as critical as managing finances if growth, scalability, or a future sale is the goal.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
Why visual appeal alone does not create results and what separates a functional business website from an online brochure
The most common digital breakdowns Paige sees, including missing conversion paths, weak calls to action, and lack of performance tracking
How Paige built Tree Ring Digital by leaning into individual team strengths instead of forcing a one size fits all structure
Why digital access, ownership, and security have become essential operational assets and how missing logins or 2FA can disrupt an entire company
What is shifting in modern marketing, including AI saturation and the renewed importance of trust based, relationship driven strategies
Paige’s experience developing confidence and leadership while navigating a male dominated industry
About the Guest
Paige Wiese is the founder and CEO of Tree Ring Digital, a Denver based marketing agency known for building high performing websites and data informed digital strategies for businesses across the country. Over her sixteen year career, Paige has helped thousands of companies strengthen their digital infrastructure, safeguard critical online assets, and drive sustainable growth through measurable marketing systems.
Recognizing that digital ownership and access are often scattered or undocumented, Paige developed a proprietary digital asset management service designed to protect and organize a company’s most vital online components. She is a frequent speaker, educator, and mentor, and leads an NGLCC certified LGBT owned business. Paige is also a member of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.
About the Host
Kami Guildner is a business coach, speaker, and advocate for women entrepreneurs who want to amplify their voice, vision, and visibility. Through her Soul plus Strategy approach, Kami helps clients build businesses that align purpose with profitability, creating both impact and sustainable success.
As founder of the Extraordinary Women Ignite Conference and host of the award winning Extraordinary Women Radio, Kami supports a global community of women leaders, consultants, and changemakers who are redefining entrepreneurship through collaboration, abundance, and meaningful growth. She is the bestselling author of Firedancer: Your Spiral Journey to a Life of Passion and Purpose and was recognized as one of the Twenty Five Most Powerful Women in Business by the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s not just about having a pretty site. It has to be a tool and an asset, not a brochure.” ~Paige Wiese
Full Transcript
Kami Guildner (00:01.703)
Well, welcome to Extraordinary Women Radio, Paige. I’m so excited to have you here today.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (00:06.264)
Thanks so much for having me. This will be a fun conversation.
Kami Guildner (00:07.677)
Yeah, yeah, it’s going to be a great conversation. I always love having conversations with you because you and I love to talk marketing and branding and all the things. And you are such a force in the digital marketing field. And I just I always am learning things from you. So I’m excited to dive in here with you today. And just where I want to start is I want to hear a bit of your story, a bit of your backstory. What’s been the journey that’s gotten to you to this place?
know, leading this agency that has, you know, grown so well and done so well. So tell us a bit more about, you know, that journey.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (00:45.774)
Yeah, the journey is, it’s been a journey, that’s for sure. I started doing architecture coming out of college and everything and that’s what my degree was in, but that was around 2008 and not a great time to be entering, especially as just more of a drafts person. And so I had to kind of pivot and shift gears and that’s when I was like, just maybe take a stab at it.
coding, see what I can do here and see what that looks like. I’ve always kind of been around and behind a computer. I enjoyed that piece of architecture going into it is like, I’ve been on these tools, I understand how to navigate them. So the computer part wasn’t such a shift and change, but going from architecture to technical web coding was definitely a huge shift and not having any of it. I didn’t learn this in a time where you could literally just.
Kami Guildner (01:28.955)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (01:36.056)
go to YouTube and watch a video on anything that was out there. And so, you you had to get more creative in how you found your answers and how that all worked. And so much more self-taught as I went, but that’s a lot of what’s been able to guide the journey when we work with clients then also is, hey, I’ve tried this, that didn’t work out so well. Hey, here’s something I know that could actually work really well. Let’s try this if you’re open to it. And so by learning and hearing all the different things and kind of taking that yes approach when I was starting to, and you know, I mean,
Kami Guildner (02:04.892)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (02:05.422)
freelancers often do that but I mean I just really was like yeah if there’s a way and someone’s done it somewhere I’ll figure out how we can do it again. So you know really learning and saying hey let’s open up and take all these opportunities instead of saying hey no I’ve never touched that before I don’t know. So that’s how I started with the website piece and then I started diving into oh yeah.
Kami Guildner (02:26.395)
And I’ll just share something here. You’ll laugh because back in my corporate days, which is many, many years ago at this point, but when I first started in the world of marketing in the corporate world, was doing websites with HTML language and all of it. And there was no interfaces or anything. There was no builders. so, I just, and I go back to thinking about that time and now, I’m like, don’t do any of my own website now.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (02:45.014)
Yeah, there was no builders.
Kami Guildner (02:56.273)
But just having that ability to be able to find something and kind of figure it out and dive in, it’s a good skill set to
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (03:06.058)
It is. And that was what I always say is like, thankfully I did learn it. Like WordPress barely even existed at the time I started. It was, you know, still like you can have a menu, but only the menu we give you and nothing else unless you know how to code. And so it really got me more of that inner working of how the backend of a website works, how to get that code to move and maneuver. And yeah, like a lot of HTML of let’s do that. And now let’s get it and bring it into say WordPress or Joomla or whatever platform we were working in.
Kami Guildner (03:12.391)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (03:34.856)
And I think that’s been a huge key to my success is watching a lot of other designers who are so used to a builder get stumped on a problem where you’re like,
Kami Guildner (03:42.141)
Right. And you knew the back door of it to be able to go in and shift things and change things.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (03:49.07)
Exactly, and so like for us, we handle troubleshooting day in and day out. It’s one of our core competencies. It’s something that we actually enjoy doing as a team, but that’s because I work so hard to say, we need people in here that do understand the inner workings of it all, not just, can we design a pretty site? But why is this issue actually happening? So that’s how I started growing it more and more into an agency then was
I’m not great at content writing. Let’s get someone else in here to do that so that the sites look good and are actually converting because of messaging too, not just a pretty site and then continuing to bring in others and then clients were like, it’s a great site. It’s not converting. And as you are used to, it’s like, because you’re not marketing. Like it’s not just going to magically deliver. Right.
Kami Guildner (04:33.725)
You can’t just put it up and go.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (04:37.312)
I know that seems crazy, but I people still believe that is like, as long as they have a website, they’re going to get business from it. And you really have to get into, you have five people visiting your site, you know, a day or a week. Like, do you think all five are going to convert if they’re even legitimate traffic? And so we start educating them on, no, this is why marketing needs to happen. Here’s how we can do that though. And so that’s really how my journey continued to evolve there.
Kami Guildner (04:40.23)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (05:02.651)
Yeah, so tell us about how the agency grew. I because I know that’s where you started as a freelancer, but then, you know, as the agency grew, I know your offerings grew and just, you know, the services, the types of services you offer to your clients really grew.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (05:17.742)
It’s crazy looking back, yeah, how much going from just freelance website design was literally all I offered.
Kami Guildner (05:23.171)
This was like 16 years ago we were just having this conversation so it’s been a while that you’ve been building this.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (05:27.68)
It’s been a while. Yeah. But that’s also where we have so many services and why we didn’t really niche. Like one, I said, we really enjoy the troubleshooting side. So the more the client can, you know, be able to bounce something off of us. it’s like, cool, let’s take that challenge and see. But no, it was really looking at where am I stalling? What are tasks that I just am sitting on for a week when I know that my expected turnaround is, you know, two days. And so I started realizing it’s because I don’t enjoy these pieces.
Kami Guildner (05:54.417)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (05:57.839)
And that’s how I started deciding who and how do I hire instead of like, oh, we need to do more web design. Let’s bring another web designer in. Oh, we need to do more of this, like, or marketing. Let’s bring a marketer in. I really more paid attention to what don’t I like doing and let’s get the right person in and handle that. And then we can see where the gap is left and then we can hire and then we can, you know, see how their learning style is and really pay attention. Like,
Kami Guildner (05:57.852)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (06:24.428)
Are they task oriented? Are they driven by deadlines? How do they work? What do they like? And I am able to at the agency, like adapt the roles too. So if we like we’ve got developers who are like, I don’t want to talk to clients. Okay. We’ll just really make sure that we change our process a little bit to make sure that that all goes through PM 100 % of the time. And others that, you know, are like, Hey, I work really well at night. Great. What are things that we can assign to you that you can do at night and keep, you know, your best working hours? And so
Kami Guildner (06:54.065)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (06:54.392)
We’ve really been able to find some really, one, good talent, but two, just a really different strategy to how I grew the company and brought that team in.
Kami Guildner (07:02.741)
I love that because it’s like you really were wanting to make your team members happy and pull out the best of what they could bring to the table. And so that’s really built a great, great team for you.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (07:12.909)
What?
Yeah, I saw it firsthand for me. So was like, I get it. If I’ve got a marketing person who enjoys analytics, but is not great or doesn’t enjoy putting together social media posts, don’t do it. But other agents, she’s like, well, that’s just, yeah, it’s just part of the role. You’re supposed to be able to do both. And I learned like, you’ve got people that are really good at analytics. You’ve got people that are good at content. You’ve got people that are good at design. Same thing with web. You’ve got developers aren’t always the strongest designers and designers.
Kami Guildner (07:27.259)
Yeah, because it’s going to come through.
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (07:43.957)
usually aren’t great developers and so great even though I can do it, how do we split that out to really get the best product in front of that client and I think that they really see that and to your point it shows through because the whole team is so happy in what they’re working on.
Kami Guildner (07:56.807)
Yeah.
Yeah. So the whole world of digital marketing has shifted and changed so much over, mean, over 16 years has shifted and changed dramatically. How has that shaped what you do for your clients? I so it’s definitely beyond just the world of websites today. It’s much broader than that. So tell us more about the scope of how you serve clients today.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (08:24.076)
Yeah, today, so we do every we’re full service as far as everything from website design, hosting with our own servers. We’ve got three in-house server techs. A lot of agencies outsource that. So that is another way that allows us to really provide that quick response, really address these concerns and get clients back up and running quickly should something happen. But then we also do the maintenance and website design, development, integration. How do we really create that website to be a tool and an asset, not just
Kami Guildner (08:34.78)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (08:53.486)
a brochure website. And then we do that over into the marketing side as well, as far as SEO, Google ads, social media management and marketing, obviously getting into the AI side of it all. And a lot of that is because I started realizing as a marketing agency, I mean, as a website agency, marketing teams don’t reach out to us. And I just don’t understand how marketing can be so successful.
when you’re not talking to the web team. And so that’s where we started to really identify that there’s a bigger gap here. And how do we bridge that of looking at the conversion coming in all the way to a paid lead on your website where a lot of marketing teams just don’t understand the website in that capacity. And so that’s also helped us really bridge the gap and why I didn’t niche into a specific service. Because I believe
Kami Guildner (09:28.231)
Mm-hmm.
Kami Guildner (09:36.221)
Alright.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (09:43.023)
It really comes down to the big picture. You need to have a variety of things. And you’ve seen it in the way that you work and operate. And, you know, Ron is like, if you’re running the podcast and you’ve got your programs and you’ve got your website, that’s why everything’s working is because you’ve got a little bit of stuff all going in a different direction, coming to the same hub. And now it’s finding success.
Kami Guildner (09:46.171)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (10:02.661)
Right. Exactly. It’s like that core piece that people can, you all things lead there, right?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (10:10.583)
Yeah, exactly. And so that’s where a lot of it works from our agency side. And then one step further, as we get into more of the digital asset protection that we haven’t seen a lot of companies getting into, which is, okay, so we’ve got all of these different platforms, compliances, you’ve got third party tools, you’ve got teams that are turning over. Who’s in charge of all of this? What happens? What are your systems? What are your safety rails? I mean, we get calls, I’d say probably at least five a week of
Kami Guildner (10:19.101)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (10:39.863)
I’m locked out of something, what do we do? And it’s got their whole business halted. you know, it’s like, to your point, 16 years ago, that was not a phone call I got. Cause there just weren’t enough platforms or tools or anything out there. And you know, still businesses kind of growing and scaling and not really, hey, I’ve got this handled. But now there’s so many moving parts, so many people in the team, so much turnover back in the day, team stayed for a really long time.
Kami Guildner (10:41.479)
Mm-hmm.
Kami Guildner (10:48.999)
Right.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (11:06.091)
Now you’re kind of lucky if you get a couple years out of them, unfortunately. And so the systems aren’t just set up for it. So that’s where we kind of took it one step further even to really help with that whole digital ecosystem.
Kami Guildner (11:06.727)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kami Guildner (11:16.337)
Yeah, I know you and I have had conversations around the work that you’ve done with companies that are doing a lot of &A. something that is just really to think through, it’s like if you’re selling your organization, you need to have all your digital assets together in one place. But we all need to know where our passwords are. We all need to know what all the different tools are and how they’re connecting and how it’s all working.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (11:22.528)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (11:34.126)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (11:45.553)
that whole, I’ve learned a lot from you just listening to, you know, like just things I wasn’t really thinking about digital asset management. And at the same time, it’s like, you know, whether we’re, you know, a solo solopreneur like myself with a small, you know, team with me and, or, you know, like large organizations that are selling, you know, parts of their business off. We have to really think through the digital asset management in a different way.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (12:15.149)
Yeah, and that’s what we realized. It doesn’t matter the size of the team. You know, it could just as easily be, you know, a solo employee or a solo owner and maybe a VA someplace. But if the VA has the keys to all these things because you hired them to set it up and something happens, that’s half your business down, you know? Yeah. And so it really can be any size company needs to be paying attention to this, especially with more and more employees and marketing companies or vendors or whatever setting stuff up on behalf.
Kami Guildner (12:24.667)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kami Guildner (12:31.547)
That’s a problem. Yeah.
Kami Guildner (12:37.394)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (12:44.601)
Yeah, so for our listeners, anything that you might suggest to them in that space?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (12:51.503)
Just document as much as you can. No, ask questions. You know, like, I think you’ve heard me talk a lot about it. It’s not just about, yes, I know the passwords. I know how to log in. It comes down to like, but who is the 2FA set up to? It comes down to not even so much, yes, there’s a card on file on auto renew, but okay, are you really paying attention to the emails though? Or are you just assuming that it ran and everything is good?
And every time you do it, you or do you have an assistant who’s watching those emails and just like, it’s GoDaddy again, boom, it’s GoDaddy again, boom. Like, you know, how repetitive are they working? And so really, why are we using this tool? Who set it up? Who has access? We see so many websites that still have like old developers or old employees attached to the logins. And it’s like, they have full admin rights. They could go in any moment and do something like…
Kami Guildner (13:43.121)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (13:43.223)
What is that policy to say we decided to no longer work with them? Let’s go ahead and cut their access. But we get clients that email us and go, hey, we’re about to let somebody go. Can you change the stuff? And I’m like, you never told us other than your website what they have access to. So no, I can’t be that person to just in the background undo everything unless we’re running through our digital asset protection service. But that’s the piece is it’s like you should know these things though.
Kami Guildner (14:04.497)
Right.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (14:11.905)
above and beyond, you know, I mean even getting into slack, getting into you know QuickBooks or Stripe or whatever, they all just get missed until the crisis hits and that’s where it’s like you need to be way more prepared because it’s going to take a while to recover.
Kami Guildner (14:25.819)
Yeah, any tools you recommend that that’s you.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (14:30.295)
I always recommend something like OnePassword is always going to be better and more secure than the browser password protection. I know that that’s a piece. But also the tools like that are only keeping track of the login details. Nothing else. They don’t tell you when things expire. They don’t tell you where the 2FA is going. They don’t tell you who has access to it, who you’ve shared a link with, anything like that. And so that’s where it’s like, yeah, it’s a good source and a good tool.
Kami Guildner (14:37.874)
Mm-hmm.
Kami Guildner (14:47.548)
Right.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (15:00.655)
but it’s only as good as what it was intended to do, which was store and save passwords. And I always joke too, as we sign some like clients or employees up on it, it’s like after two weeks to be like, can you like reset my recovery code? I’m like, that was the one password, like only password we needed to remember was that one. And now I need to go reset it for you. And you know, I mean like it happens, but that’s the thing is like, even if you’re locked out, you’re locked out. Good luck. So.
Kami Guildner (15:27.899)
Yeah. Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (15:29.247)
is that tool is helpful as long as you’re using it appropriately. So that’s one thing I would say. And then two is like our digital asset protection service really is set up and in place for going into all. We go about seven different pillars of domain and hosting to emails, marketing, KPIs, to social media platforms, directory listings, brand assets, getting into third party tools, compliance. So we’re really looking at.
all of that and diving into, yeah, it’s about 300 or so data points that go into how do we really cover and encompass all of this to make sure that that footprint and that digital continuity exists through turnover and growth.
Kami Guildner (15:58.578)
really in depth.
Kami Guildner (16:03.282)
Wow.
Kami Guildner (16:12.231)
That’s awesome. That’s really awesome. Let’s talk a little bit about, so you’ve built your business in a very male dominated industry. What’s helped you step into your confidence and leadership and your voice along the way over the years, like really owning, you know, just being you and showing up as you and a leader in that space.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (16:35.383)
Yeah, I think one, I noticed it, but I didn’t really let it hold me back too much. think I have a different and more fortunate journey for sure in a male dominated space though. When I was getting started at 23, they were all looking at me going, she knows something we don’t know, because they were so used to traditional marketing. They were used to advertising the TV, radio, yellow pages, all of that billboards, right?
And then they see me come in building the websites and talking to clients about a digital presence. And they’d be like, can you come help us on something real quick? And so I got really fortunate that that’s one situation where like the age kind of did help me. It was probably harder when working with clients because they’d be like, you’re really young, you know you’re doing. But those where we got and saw a lot of businesses we were starting was the referrals of really established agencies saying,
you’re offering something we don’t, we need you to come with us. And so I got really fortunate in that sense that, like I said, while understanding it’s a male dominated, they were so happy to see someone young. And that’s kind of what we’re doing even today with like some of the TikTok stuff. Completely honest. I don’t understand it that well. Not my jam. Great. I can hire people that do, but again, like understanding how do you bring those strengths in to really support instead of feeling like you have to know how every single…
piece of it works.
Kami Guildner (18:06.139)
Yeah, like own what you know, but also bring the right people in around you so that you can always show up there. So you’re working with clients from all walks and different types of industries. What’s some of the biggest gap you see or the biggest challenges you run into as far as people in their digital marketing that they’re putting out into the world? Where do you see the biggest gaps?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (18:10.817)
Exactly.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (18:31.897)
Biggest gaps would be clarity and their messaging. And when I say messaging, really mean, I love asking the question, great, they’re on your about page. What are they supposed to do on your about page? Do you want them to contact you from there? Do you want them to schedule a consultation? Do you want them to learn about the team? Like, what is it that you actually want them to do? So when they come to us and say, my marketing’s not working, it’s really flipping it and going.
But are you making it clear and obvious of what you want them to do that is considered a conversion and what to do when they’re on that page? So many, yeah, there’s a phone number in the header. Okay, but that doesn’t tell them the next step to do on a service page. it’s, know, like to your point opt in for a mastermind, schedule a consultation, pay for a one-time course. Like what are we doing? And so when we can really get more clarity around, yeah, but what is that action that they should take? Or what is that first step of engaging with you?
Kami Guildner (19:03.761)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (19:11.534)
Right.
Kami Guildner (19:27.857)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (19:28.205)
then we can really start to see better results. So I’d say that’s one. And then two is just not asking the right questions. They’re working with marketing agencies and just throwing money out the door. And it’s just they’re not understanding. is it like, is it a website issue? Is it a marketing issue? Are they really getting the KPIs? I can’t tell you how many have never looked at Google Analytics or don’t understand the Google Analytics. And I’m just like every marketing company that should just be like a standard.
Kami Guildner (19:35.005)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (19:39.101)
Hmm.
Kami Guildner (19:51.516)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (19:56.591)
I don’t understand why most have never gone over it with their clients. So it’s hard for us to even step in and try to be like, well, let’s fix things. You have no…
Kami Guildner (19:57.714)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (20:04.613)
when they don’t have any understanding of what’s underneath all of that. Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell you, I’m guilty about looking at my analytics.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (20:08.015)
Exactly.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (20:17.615)
But if you don’t know, like, what is it going to help you? Right? And so same thing. It’s like, yes, the report’s there and it’s really important, but what am I trying to get from it? And if I’m not asking that question for you to understand, like, how many people went to this page and completed your form? Almost nobody puts on form tracking. We put it on every single site so that we know, yes, they don’t like your form. Change it. Like, now we might see more conversion.
Kami Guildner (20:19.911)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (20:26.074)
Exactly.
Kami Guildner (20:34.311)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Kami Guildner (20:41.563)
Yeah, change the form up. Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (20:44.419)
But yeah, it’s like, but if you don’t know what part it is, or when you do to your point, have like all these different pieces coming in, then it’s like, but what is it telling me? Because I don’t know how to connect the dots. And so that’s why we really like to sit down and connect those dots and say, hey, this is what the picture is actually painting. Maybe go back to the marketing team if you’re not using us, but at least we can guide you in what’s happening here.
Kami Guildner (20:51.164)
Right.
Kami Guildner (20:56.167)
Right.
Kami Guildner (21:04.253)
Mm-hmm.
Kami Guildner (21:10.289)
Yeah, I like that. I think that marketing has really changed in the last few years. What are you noticing? What do you see happening for your clients and how they’re having to shift up their marketing and even for your own marketing?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (21:25.689)
think one old methods aren’t working. We’ve had a lot of really established clients come to us just going, what was working isn’t, and we need to start doing more marketing now. And that’s kind of why they’re coming over to us is the old ways weren’t working. And, you know, some of that’s obviously going to be the shift of how a consumer is going from Google search to AI. And, you know, what are you doing to show up there? Unfortunately, right this moment, there’s not a lot of immediate fixes in that because of how the LLMs are trained.
And so it’s really how do we kind of start putting framework to be ready when an update to the LMS happen or, you know, slowly start guiding what that looks like. But it’s a little harder there. then, too, there’s just so much hype. is so yes, do this, do this. You got to be here. You got to do this. You got to have TikTok videos. You got to have email campaigns. You got to use this tool. You got to do that. You got to. It’s overwhelming. And a lot of times it’s not what a client needs. We don’t do much. No.
Kami Guildner (22:08.157)
So much noise. Yeah.
Kami Guildner (22:19.058)
Yeah.
There’s no heart in it, right? I mean, it’s like if it’s if it’s just push, push, push stuff out, there’s no heart to it.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (22:27.919)
No, and as an example, I was watching someone and I followed them for a little bit. And so I’m used to what their content is. And then all of sudden I see two or three posts a day, all AI driven with like the AI, you know, bot recorder kind of thing. It still looks like them and it’s still, you know, but if you catch it, you catch it. It’s 100 % an AI video level where they typed in a script and then it popped out the AI avatar talking that looks just like them. And I’m like,
Kami Guildner (22:46.471)
But it’s actually an AI video is what you’re saying. Yeah, yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (22:58.319)
Great, and I’m glad that you have this much content. I unfollowed you, and I followed you a long time. Like, it’s just not genuine anymore, and that’s not what we want. So that noise factor is how do we really still find that human touch while still getting everything done that we’re supposed to be doing?
Kami Guildner (23:06.097)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (23:16.925)
Yeah, I think one of the things I’ve really put a lot of focus on is how do I actually stay in relationship with the people that I am meeting in digital scenarios? It’s like, how can I keep that connection up? How can I build a deeper connection versus just creating more content? Because to me, that feels like it just is an empty push if that’s the focus.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (23:25.743)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (23:33.603)
Bye.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (23:39.395)
One
Yeah and there’s two pieces to that. Like if your goal is to be a thought leader or some of the SEO stuff, then content is going to be a little more helpful for that particular goal. If you’re looking to your point, right? Like relationship building, genuine referrals coming in and whatnot, then that’s going to be the relationship side. And so that’s where it is important to come back and go, why? Why am I doing this effort?
Kami Guildner (24:01.596)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (24:05.723)
But even the thought leaders aren’t the ones that are like just like three times a day turning information out. They’re they’re turning out longer form. They’re they’re they’re doing deeper work and they’re bringing longer form content to the table. But they’re not they’re not just like turning, you know, you know, empty content is I think. Yeah, yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (24:12.075)
No.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (24:16.579)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (24:22.272)
Absolutely.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (24:28.417)
No, because they know that’s not thought leadership, right? mean that point is like, and that’s where I think, I was going is like, you’re putting blogs out then that are really talking about something and educating and putting the workshops or whatever in that kind of content out there to show it. But, and no, I’d say we’ve seen more people coming to us for relationship marketing than, you know, ever before to your point where they’re just like, you have great context in your network, you just forgot about.
Kami Guildner (24:36.529)
bright.
Kami Guildner (24:41.051)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kami Guildner (24:49.724)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (24:54.535)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (24:54.625)
And so how do we do a better job of really putting that framework in place to say, here’s how we’re going to build these relationships and make sure they stay meaningful instead of great, have, know a ton of people.
Kami Guildner (25:04.199)
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. What else did I want to ask you? We’ve talked a little bit about imposter syndrome, just you and I chatting together. How, and I think it was something that we all will come across at times in our businesses. How have you personally navigated through that? And what would you say to somebody who might be in the thick of it right now?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (25:31.661)
I think there’s been two different times that I’ve really, really felt that imposter. One, when I was starting my business and obviously self-taught. So I’d go into sales meetings, not knowing anything about what I was talking about, but just confidently going. And then, there’s times you step back and you’re like, wait, what am I doing here? Like there’s definitely way more established people that should be doing this and not me. But as I started seeing the successes and the wins, then it was like,
I do know this, I have this and yeah, as I got through like that.
Kami Guildner (26:01.467)
You know what you’re doing. So the successes that were coming were showing up for you. We’re helping you through that.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (26:09.295)
Yeah, getting through that first year of freelance work, I was like, oh, well, not everybody does that. Okay. Or when I started seeing freelancers, you know, kind of fiddle out or get back to full time work, and I was growing an agency, it was like, I’m doing something so just like, just keep really, really focused and know like you’re doing it right, because not everybody’s journey is going this way. So that would be one. And the other sometimes I take a step back and go,
am I in a room full of financial people and &A when I have no business background? I have no financial background. I don’t have deal background with the exception of like, I do. I’ve worked on 75 plus deals and helped with those integrations of sorts and been through these processes. We’ve helped clients through acquisitions. And so while I might not like have the formal degree, I still know this.
Kami Guildner (26:41.341)
You
Kami Guildner (27:01.874)
You’re bringing all your expertise that you’ve gained over the years to the table.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (27:04.559)
Everything.
So there’s times I step into rooms or even the panels or whatever, I’m like what am I, I know why I’m here. Like I’m fully aware and if they see it or not, they will once I start talking but there’s definitely times you walk into a room just like I don’t even know, maybe out of my league by standing in this room right now.
Kami Guildner (27:25.925)
No, it’s like you’re bringing exactly what that room needs and that’s the beauty of it. So tell me, yeah, exactly. How about that?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (27:33.295)
I like challenging the way they think, you know, like they’re so stuck and this is the only way a deal should work. And then I come in and they’re like, huh, I’m like, yeah, I know, but it’s because I wasn’t trained the same way you were. I was trained in a whole different way. So I see this in a different way than what they’re teaching in a school sitting or like, you know, years of going through their apprenticeship stuff. So that makes it a little bit different set of eyes.
Kami Guildner (27:45.916)
Right.
Kami Guildner (27:49.661)
Yeah.
Kami Guildner (27:55.186)
Yeah.
I love it. I love it. So if you could sit down with yourself at the start of this journey that you’ve been on, what would you tell her right now?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (28:07.583)
there’s times I’m like I don’t know if I knew everything I know today if I would still do it. It’s just there’s so much hustle and so much grind and so many different things and at the same time like I absolutely love every aspect of what I do on a regular basis. People are like you work too much and I’m like no half of my time is actually just my hobby of business growth and development and the other half is working on clients and like I’m so happy I found
Kami Guildner (28:29.244)
Yeah.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (28:33.485)
the business side and just unlimited opportunities. I had no idea what I could even get myself into as far as growth and goals and know acquisitions and different things and it’s just been such a fun journey of like just keep pushing. You don’t know where it’s gonna go and it’s not written yet so keep going.
Kami Guildner (28:49.681)
Yeah.
Keep doing it, keep turning the pages. Yeah. So where can people learn more about you and about your agency? us.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (28:55.17)
Mm-hmm.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (29:01.677)
Yeah, so LinkedIn is where I am most of the time. And you can also visit us at treeringdigital.com. And I’ve also got a free digital asset checklist to kind of help them get started in that process at treeringdigital.com slash women. And so they can go there, download that. And that’s going to be a really good place of like, are we keeping track of these pieces? And should we start to identify these gaps and decide what do we need to be doing differently?
Kami Guildner (29:14.887)
Good.
Kami Guildner (29:23.709)
Ooh, yeah. Oh, I need to go grab that. I’ll have to go get that. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Okay, the final question I always close with is what are three pearls of wisdom you want to leave with us today?
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (29:37.871)
Keep pushing, get outside of your comfort zone and trust and believe in yourself.
Kami Guildner (29:43.559)
love it. love it. Paige, thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. I always enjoy our conversations and I think you’re doing just great things in the world of marketing and digital marketing. So I always turn to you for expertise on that. So thank you.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (30:00.975)
Oh no, thank you. Thanks for the kind words and just the conversation today. But yeah, I’ve enjoyed our partnership over the years.
Kami Guildner (30:06.789)
Yeah, talk to you later.
Paige – Tree Ring Digital (30:08.809)
Bye.