AI in Marketing: What to Automate—and What to Never Hand Off
In this episode, Jeff Mains sits down with Paige Wiese — founder and CEO of Tree Ring Digital, a Denver-based digital agency with 16 years in the business. Paige brings a unique perspective to digital marketing rooted in her background in architecture, and uses that framework to help companies build websites and marketing systems with intentional structure, clear user flow, and long-term durability.
The conversation covers the growing crisis of digital asset chaos — lost logins, expired domains, departed vendors, and employees who leave with critical access — and how Paige built a proprietary system tracking 200+ data points to help companies protect what they’ve built. They also dig into the dangerous temptation of blindly trusting AI for SEO, content, and ad campaigns, why the “mushy middle” of AI-generated content is killing brand differentiation, and how founders can build marketing foundations that actually convert rather than just generate traffic.
Key Takeaways:
5:02 From Architecture to Digital Marketing
6:14 User Flow = Website Architecture
6:53 The Build Sequence Matters
10:09 The Aha Moment for Digital Asset Protection
11:29 Password Managers Aren’t Enough
13:00 AI Moved Fast — and That Was the Surprise
16:45 Intent-Driven Marketing Starts With the Goal
17:49 KPIs Before Campaigns
19:23 Tried-and-True SEO Still Wins
20:59 Mass AI Content Is a Dead End
23:45 When AI Almost Derailed a Google Ads Campaign
26:28 AI Sourcing the Internet Isn’t Your Expertise
29:31 AI as a Tool, Not a Crutch
33:43 You Own Everything
35:23 Holistic Marketing Metrics
38:20 Know Where Your Audience Is
40:05 Slow Down to Speed Up
Transcript
00:00
Are you an overwhelmed SaaS founder, ready to make the leap from leading a team to leading an organization? Join us each week as we refill your think tank with actionable tips and strategies from great business minds you know and those who don’t know yet. This is SaaS Fuel with your host, five-time entrepreneur, SaaS founder, and globetrotting adventurer, Jeff Mains.
00:24
Welcome back to the SAS Fuel podcast, where AI can write your content, automate your files, and optimize your SEO. But it still needs a human to stop it from sounding like everyone else on the internet. I’m your host, Jeff Maines. I’ll be to be SAS founders like you grow from traction to scale. Here, growth is more than just numbers. It’s about crafting a future-proof company, premium valuation, and leaders who build a business of significance while living epic, adventurous lives.
00:52
Ever notice how some websites feel like thoughtfully designed spaces while others feel like you’re wandering in a digital warehouse with no exit signs? That’s kind of my experience of IKEA. And in a world where AI can generate pages in seconds, what actually separates strategic growth from automated chaos? Today, we’re going to explore what happens when an architectural mindset meets digital marketing and why structure flow and intentional design matter more than ever.
01:21
You’ll hear how thinking like an architect changes the way you build websites, systems, and even marketing campaigns, prioritizing user movement, clarity, and purpose over shiny tactics. We’ll dig into the messy reality most growing companies face, and that is scattered digital assets, lost logins, expired domains, disconnected vendors, and no clear ownership. Anybody else relate to that?
01:48
Well, it’s not glamorous, but mismanaging these details quietly stalls growth and creates unnecessary risk. You’ll also hear how the marketing landscape is shifting under AI’s rapid evolution. And why chasing every new tool is just a losing game. It sure is tempting. The conversation tackles intent-driven strategy, slowing down just long enough to define real goals, meaningful KPIs, and conversion paths that actually work.
02:16
will unpack the risk of mass AI generated content, over automated campaigns, and blindly trusting algorithmic recommendations without human oversight. Because while AI can accelerate execution, it can’t replace judgment, originality, or your brand voice. If you want your digital presence to feel deliberate instead of duct taped together, and you’re navigating SEO, AI, and automation without wanting to lose your edge,
02:44
This episode offers grounded insight on building systems that convert, differentiate, and actually last. Let’s dive in. Our founder on Tuesday was AJ, CEO of Daylight. He shared what it takes to build a SaaS company that lasts for decades, which I absolutely love. From early adversity to navigating the dot-com crash and transitioning from desktop to SaaS, AJ showed that discipline, systems, and long-term thinking still win. And his approach to AI.
03:14
Use it to enhance workflows, but never at the expense of customer trust. Absolutely brilliant insight. And our expert guest last week was Javier Lozano Jr. He broke down how to build a predictable B2B go-to-market engine. Instead of chasing tactics, he emphasized auditing systems, aligning sales and marketing, and letting data, not opinions, guide budget decisions. But his message was absolutely clear. Growth comes from structure.
03:44
not shortcuts or hacks. Really good stuff. If you missed either of those episodes, go back and give them a listen. My guest today is Paige Weiss, founder and CEO of TreeRing Digital, a Denver-based agency known for building high-performance websites and digital marketing systems for businesses all over the country. But Paige isn’t just focused on traffic and conversions, she’s focused on protection as well. After 16 years in digital marketing, Paige saw a recurring problem.
04:13
Companies growing fast, but losing track of their digital infrastructure, missing logins, expired domain, vendors disappearing, and employees leaving with critical knowledge. So she built something different, a proprietary digital asset management system designed to track and protect over 200 essential data points that most companies don’t even realize they’re responsible for. Welcome someone who helps businesses protect what they’ve built and grow without losing control.
04:42
Paige Weiss. Hey Paige, welcome to SaaS Fuel. Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here. Well, you began in architecture, which I think is fascinating, and then pivoted into digital marketing. How did the shift happen and how has the architectural mindset influenced the way you build websites and systems today? Yeah, the shift wasn’t intentional. It was more out of a need. I was doing architecture back in 2008, then also started having some health issues that
05:12
made me kind of start rethinking like, where are we going with this career and what am I doing? So that’s when I switched into website design and just teaching myself how to code and what all of that looked like from a development perspective. But I enjoyed it because it gave me that option to see how the design, how the development, how the interconnecting’s worked and how to make a development piece look pretty. I think that’s a piece that I see a lot of developers or designers struggle with the opposite direction.
05:40
And then also just how to do server side. So it really brought a much more broad knowledge to how I operate. And was learning how to code compared to, especially today where there’s just a lot of widgets of drag and drop, put this here, do that. I’m back to when we were hard coding it and getting into the PHP files, the HTML, CSS, all of that. So it really gave me a stronger background. But from the architecture perspective,
06:08
There was kind of two pieces that I was really, really able to carry over. And one of them being how does the user navigate? So when you’re dealing with architecture, a lot of it is flow. A lot of it is how is the user going to get from the sink to the kitchen, to the stove, right? And not be walking all over the place or how do we efficiently get through the house? And so I feel like our website is very similar to that is how is the user going to navigate efficiently through.
06:37
the house of the website and the house of the company, if you will. So that’s a lot of where that transitioned and carried over. The second side of that would also be from the standpoint of how everything has to flow together. And in architecture, we learn a lot of you can’t have the concrete poured before, you’ve actually got the rebar and you can’t get the, you know, framing up until you have this other piece done. So you really have to stick to a schedule.
07:05
And I think that’s what’s really led to our success in our website development process is we know let’s get this person moving and get that team moving, but let’s make sure that this piece is done before that part gets kicked off. So we come at it a little bit differently, but we’ve seen our process for development is really successful. work clients through it that way. like that. And from a start there, you’ve been around 16 years, which is an eternity in digital marketing world.
07:32
What was your original vision and then how has that evolved over time? That’s a funny question. I remember even the first like five years, people be like, what’s your, what’s your 10 year plan? What do you plan to do with this? was like, I started doing freelance. I had no idea I was going to convert it into a full service agency or even the successes that we’ve had over the years. So it was really hard upfront to put any sort of five year, 10 year plan together. Cause there really was just kind of like writing it out and enjoying it all. And then.
08:01
I think kind of mid COVID, post COVID, I kind of had to go, wait, I’ve built something, but where are we going? Especially with all of these changes that are happening and one with tech, two with the economy and just even how the team works from in-person to remote to hybrid to all these pieces. So I did finally have to slow down and start saying, what does that look like? And now as we move into it, one is how do we sort through the noise of AI?
08:30
How do we know that our systems are still really solid, but adapt what we need to, to still get that website build or the marketing efforts that we’re looking to? How do we not get over consumed in AI and say, let’s just jump and do all of it. Like we’re an agency, let’s do it all. And really kind of keep some of that calmness for our clients and say, here’s what we should be focused on. Here’s how we’re going to continue moving forward with you. So that’s another, and then internally, we’ve just been doing a lot more of
09:00
How do we build out our own SaaS system? How do we go and look at some of these next growth strategies for us to continue growing as a company and kind of protect ourselves from some of the AI that might be coming our direction? And you’ve done some really cool things, especially as it relates to SaaS, in a digital asset management service. Yeah. think that’s a great, great tool. You’re tracking a couple hundred data points.
09:27
What was the aha moment that made you realize companies needed this? Yeah, I think, I mean, I’ve been doing it for 16 years. I’ve fielded a lot of phone calls over the years and a lot of them come to us. And even as we’re onboarding, we’re just like, what are your login details? And we so often get, I think they’re in an email someplace. I think my developer sent them to me at one point and that’s what we had gotten over the years. So that answer was pretty consistent and we knew like they could usually turn up. We could usually find those at some point.
09:57
But what really hit that aha moment, especially in the last six months to a year, is the amount of companies calling us and saying, I’m locked out. I don’t know where my logins are. My developer passed away. My vendor disappeared. They’re not responding. I don’t know how to get into this account. An employee left. I have no idea how to recover what she set up or he set up. And so there’s this piece where it was like,
10:23
Why are we not paying attention? Like you own this company, you own these assets. Why are you leaving so much on the table for other people to manage when that’s part of your brand? And so that was really like the aha moment for us though was this is much larger and the amount of tech that’s out there these days compared to five, 10, 15 years ago, it’s just gonna keep getting worse until there can be really a solution to put that out there.
10:52
really, really smart. I think that that happens a lot. Whether it’s being locked out of an account and that’s happened to me, whether it is just managing digital assets internally, you know, just marketing collateral, especially over years, it just, it ends up in all sorts of different places. So I mean, there’s, so many different use cases for those types of things. Yeah. And I think, I mean, that’s just it is companies are growing. want them to it’s, it’s the,
11:20
necessary evil, if you will, as we’re getting into these assets then. But yeah, and there are tools out there. I you can definitely use password managers, but the password managers are only keeping track of the passwords. They’re not keeping track of when do they expire, who’s responsible, what card is on file, all these other pieces, right? So there’s this misconception of, oh, I’ve got it. My browser stores all of these for me now. And then it’s like, yeah, but if your computer gets that clean tomorrow.
11:50
Is your browser still storing every password that you’ve trusted it with? And so what are we doing to kind of protect that and really have that point? The other place that it comes up is like, yeah, clients will email us and say, Hey, we’re getting ready to let this employee go. We need to stop everything they have access to. And I just look at them and go, that’s not my job. My job. know who has access to your website, but I don’t know about like where your logo files are. Who’s got access to your social platform sometimes.
12:19
Who’s got access to your Slack? What other third party tools? What have they set up under your watch that you don’t know about, but are maybe still playing on a credit card for? So there’s like, sure, we can help you, but only for the parts that you’ve hired us for, not for your entire digital ecosystem. But no one is, your IT company is not looking at that either. And so that’s where we start to see that disconnect start to happen. We’ve seen that the marketing landscape shift.
12:47
Pretty dramatically, I mean, certainly since you started and over the last couple of years for sure, what’s one of the biggest changes that surprised you and how have you helped clients adapt? I think, I mean, obviously just the capabilities of what AI can do is probably one of the biggest changes and just surprising of like, wow, I knew these things would come at some point, but maybe as quickly as they came, right? a little more unpredictable. And I say that and I always laugh too because
13:17
No, AI has been around for a really long time, right? I think it was that it hit so hard, so fast. And so while yes, it’s been around a while, people quickly started adapting in the last year or two. And so that’s a piece. And I think the other part of it that’s hard is there are so many tools you can use. Just how many different tools can create images for you? How many different LLMs can you be diving into?
13:44
And so it’s like, how do you sort through all of that? So my team’s keeping an eye on a lot of it, but when we work with the clients, we’ve always kept the model of, but what’s the right solution for what you’re trying to do? So it’s helpful for us to understand there’s a lot out there. However, it’s not helpful for us to go try to learn every single one of them in this exact moment. And so really understanding what are the struggles the client’s having.
14:11
And how do we just stay really focused on fixing that compared to trying to be everything to everyone? Oh, that’s really, really good. Yeah. AI is moving so fast. And, you know, I had a conversation even this last week of somebody and they’re like, oh yeah, I tried that six months ago. didn’t work. Like, well, if he hadn’t tried it, you know, in the last week, two weeks, know, month, you know, it’s probably too long. Yeah.
14:39
things are going so, fast and things that weren’t possible a year ago or things that were kind of so, so a year ago are pretty impressive. So it’s amazing just the speed of iteration. Well, that’s where I get why clients are overwhelmed. get why sometimes they feel like they’re behind the ball. get why it’s like I’m already trying to manage a company, manage a team, manage our clients and output, manage all these pieces.
15:08
And now you want me to learn AI? Like, but I’ve also sat in so many other pieces, like conferences and webinars and workshops recently. And it is just so much talk of, we need to get AI in if we’re going to increase valuation. it’s like, does it make sense for your company though? Like, jump to jump. Or if you’re already like so close to, let’s just say exiting or something. No, it doesn’t make sense this moment to be like, let’s completely toss the entire company upside down and throw AI in.
15:38
Right. Maybe that’s what the company acquiring you does. Right. And so it’s really understanding where does it make sense and is right now really the right time? Or should we start laying back to architecture that foundation to say, we’re going to start moving that all of our data is being kept here so that as we continue to build out AI, we already know where our data is stored and then we can keep building instead of in six months, a year going.
16:07
Well, let’s start finding where all of our data is and put it in one central location. So, you know, I think there’s those pieces that you can do this, start taking some small steps that will still set you up for success when it makes sense for your business to adapt. And chasing shiny objects, whether it’s AI or other things, I mean, that’s, that can be problematic. Add costs are up, ROAS is down. What is your approach for helping founders focus on intent driven strategies that actually drive results and not just
16:37
chasing the trend. Yeah, that’s something we’ve really focused on when growing the company is always what’s the right solution, but what’s the right solution for the goal that the client has? I know our SEO services are fantastic. I know that we really deliver results in that, but it doesn’t mean that’s the right solution for every company. And, you know, even just like podcasting, it’s not the right solution for every company.
17:04
And so we really slow down with the client, even if they call us and say, Hey, I just want you to run ads. got a referral to you. I’ll always be like, but what’s the goal or like, how quickly are you wanting to really see that ROI? Cause if this is a desperation mode, then we need to do something really, really aggressive. this is business is fantastic. We just want to deepen our footprint. That’s a whole different strategy. And so that’s where we want to slow down and go, what’s the goal.
17:30
And now we can get a lot of the shiny objects out of the way and really focus on that goal at hand. I like that. You’re really focusing on that. The goal is so important. Actually knowing why, why are we doing this? Yeah, too often they want to start marketing and they don’t even know. They don’t even have the right conversion tracking in place. They don’t even have the right KPIs to know what is or isn’t successful. And you’re like, how do you want me to deliver on this result when you don’t even know what
18:00
success looks like for you. But then in three months, I’m going to hear these campaigns aren’t successful. it’s like, right. I know we didn’t ever determine what that’s going to look like. So that’s where again, slowing down and know what we’re doing is going to make sure we are keeping the clients, you know, getting what they’re looking for. Right, right. It’s not just a simple, we want to turn on ads. Okay. What do you want to do? Sell stuff. Right.
18:24
Or, mean, just like that, I’ve got a SaaS, want a million people subscribed and I know I’ll be making fantastic money. It’s not that simple. think there’s some steps missing in the middle there. Exactly. That’s good. Well, and you mentioned SEO and I think that’s a pretty hot topic, whether that is still viable or whether it’s going away and then you’ve got AI optimization and there’s lots of tools that are promising easy content and SEO ends. How do you separate what’s hype?
18:53
from what’s actually helpful, especially just from an indexing standpoint, what’s gonna help you, what’s gonna hurt you, and then what are the risks of going all in on automation? Two questions there for sure. As far as SEO and AIO, I call it AIO for AI optimization. One, that’s the hard part. There’s so many terms already just alone for that kind of optimization, but two, it’s…
19:18
I think it’s something that one, when you’ve been around this industry for so long, you really start to see is the tried and true, like just sticking to best practice is really going to be what gets you results. And any of these people that are like jumping to the hype of we’re going to build you 200 pages and that’s going to help you in the LLMs. Yeah. But we also saw what mass backlink building did for SEO.
19:43
It got sites banned. so as soon as they pick up that you just dropped 200 AI created web pages, it’s going to ban you one day. It might not today, but the algorithms are smart. They understand what’s happening. That’s something we’ve always seen. And algorithms still exist in LLMs and all these other pieces, especially as we start getting into, you know, shopping and all these other ways. So it really is just stick to the best practices and it will.
20:11
pay off long term, even if you don’t see that immediate jump you’re looking for, but also taking a few steps back to realize how are the LLMs trained? Where are they actually getting this data? And when you can better understand that, AI starts to make more sense. But a lot of these companies that are promising all of this hype around, we’re going to have you ranking in the LLMs and showing up anytime someone searches for blank,
20:39
That’s not how that works. That’s still more core SEO with some layered on, or maybe that’s more traditional public relations of getting out in third party platforms that have a really good ranking that are getting that content source to the LLMs and getting it that way. But just going out and mass producing tons of content and FAQs is not the solution, especially if they can’t find your site to begin with, which is what SEO does.
21:09
understanding what is it that they’re actually saying they’re going to deliver. And I think you’re also going to see that a lot of these companies are trying to deliver something that they can’t actually track. That’s true. And even when people do find your site, I think that’s a really good point. It’s designed to drive traffic to the site. What do they see when they get there? How do they engage? What does the user flow look like? Because you can have tons and tons of leads, but unless they’re actually going deeper into the website, unless they are consuming something,
21:38
unless they’re actually taking some sort of an action and not just getting lost or bouncing. Then you can have all the leads in the world, but it’s just wasted. Well, I think that answer is kind of a little, or leads us into the other question you were asking about how much is too much automation, right? Cool. Let AI build all these pages for you. But did you slow down to check if your call to action is actually taking them where it says it’s going?
22:05
Or did AI just come up with a random phrase and say, that’s what’s happening. And it doesn’t even work anymore. Cause you didn’t know that’s what was being used or okay. So you’ve automated that cool. It’s working. But what is the actual next step? And did you look at that place too? Or are you hoping that that got automated with it? Cause I’m going to tell you, it probably didn’t like everything’s very chunked out and the automation it really, you have to put time, energy and attention into a start to finish.
22:34
automation flow, that’s not just an output of can you code this for me? So, you know, you still have to understand what you’re putting on your site to know if it’s going to convert or not. And then on the other side of that is how much are your consumers ready for that automation? If you’re getting into voice agents, which is a hot buzz right now and a shiny object, I can tell you right now the amount of people that are like, I’m so happy I’m talking to a human.
23:01
When we start actually talking to them or that my team calls, it’s crazy that that’s now this level of like, wow, I wasn’t expecting that kind of service. I’m like, we’ve been used to for years. That’s what gives you. know, someone picking up a phone, it was bad, but now people don’t want that AI. They’re not ready for it. Some companies and organizations it is. So understanding where’s your client and consumer and are they ready for that level of automation or not?
23:30
Yeah, that’s really, really smart. You mentioned AI can get it wrong. And I think that that’s definitely true. mean, you know, mistaking the black car service for a mechanic was one of the examples you talked about last time. know, share a moment where, you know, AI almost derailed the campaign and maybe how human oversight saved it. Well, one place that I see it often, and it’s going to be anything that’s kind of related to Google ads is they’re going to tell you set it up for
23:59
cost per conversion, they’re going to tell you to set it up in these certain ways and to use this type of keyword phrase, whether it be broad match, know, phrase match, exact match, whatever. So you start setting these things up and you’re blindly testing, trusting AI to walk you through how to set up Google ads. But next thing you know, you never set up conversion. So to actually know that a campaign that is based on conversion,
24:25
is going to deliver the results that you want when you never set up conversion is never going to happen. And you will always have poor results. But then you’ve got the client or like, you know, the person setting them up going, well, I don’t know. AI told me that this is how it works. And you’re like, I know, but it doesn’t, they’re just going with what the best practice or the answer they found online is, but they’re not looking at your exact setup and configuration to know. And have you followed
24:55
all of the steps to set up a campaign successfully. So yes, you can quickly one run through and blow through a budget and two, have it not do anything that you’re supposed to be doing. had another client call and they were like, yeah, I was running Google ads one time and the rep called me and walking me through how to set it all up. And then they changed my budget. And I just was like, okay, you’re telling me what to do. Next thing I know, I’ve got a budget that was $10,000 in two weeks. And it was like,
25:25
Yeah, we got to know why we’re running the like, how, what does this mean when we hit these buttons? And so, you know, it can really happen, but I think a lot of people are blindly trusting AI, not actually knowing is the same thing we said with a with SEO, right? Fill in these things. It doesn’t mean just because it told you that’s the what to put in them, you know, core focus keyword phrase that it’s right. It you need to know what you’re actually putting in there for a reason. That makes a lot of sense.
25:54
Yeah, it’s not something just set it and forget it or yes. now. What about over reliance on AI and how does that create kind of the mushy middle of content instead of thinking about things and maybe doing something yourself? And what would you tell founders to do? This is always a fun question for me because we get a lot of clients, even over the years, right? Is content marketing or I want to do more blogging and you’re like, okay, do more blogging.
26:21
But they’re well, I can use AI, right? That’s why I want to do more. I’m just going to let AI write all of these. it’s like, yeah, but AI is sourcing the internet for the answer. The reason people hire you is for your answer. And so you can have it write everything it wants all day long. But if it’s not following your values and your mindset and your thought process on a topic, then what’s the point of putting it out there? And how do you like…
26:50
In a world where looking at, you know, how do we stand out with everything going on? Rinse and repeating and duplicating the same content that everyone else is putting out there isn’t making you a thought leader. It’s not making you stand out from your competitor that’s offering the same service or product. How do we get yours doing that? So yeah, we can definitely train it and work it through and start to get what that looks like. But again, we got to start with
27:17
how do we get all of this data and everything that’s even like in your mind into the LLM so that we can get it to be producing your thoughts on the topic that you’re talking about. So yes, you can use AI to create content. I do know a lot of, you know, like it’s still heavily watched and you know, the search engines and LLMs can pick up on what is AI written. Your consumer can pick up on what is AI written. Like people know.
27:47
And is that really how you want your brand represented? Some situations? Yeah, it’s fine. But most of the time, no, I don’t really like going to websites and being like, dude, you just literally threw this up with AI. Like you didn’t put any time, energy, attention. doesn’t tell me anything that’s helpful about your company. It’s just canned content on even a canned design that I’ve seen a hundred times.
28:12
I’m just going to go to the next person. And so we are going to see an era where we start losing some of that business because of how much we’ve been reliant on it. Oh, you want the company to be coming across. And I say that because you’ve got some companies that are fun, hip and cuss all the time. And you’ve got other brands that are sharp buttoned up and you know, super PC. And so like, how do you want to be represented? And that’s one of the areas like, are we just having AI spit out AI?
28:40
Or are we bringing that brand voice into it and really training it to say, here’s how I want to talk? And so I think that’s one way to go about it. But it really does come down to use it to get you started and then finish it off yourself and ask the questions of like, is this talking about and representing the way that I think about this topic or why it’s important? And that can come down to SaaS systems as well as far as
29:09
Why is your tool better and different than others and why should they be using it? And yeah, it’ll give you some answers, but does that align with what you wanted and why you put that product out there? Or is it just dumping what it thinks the right answer is for why your product is superior to others that you’re building? So, you know, really understanding those pieces of it and not using it as the end all be all, but a tool in your toolbox.
29:36
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30:05
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30:35
you know, engaging. But then if you’re a founder and you’re relying on AI to tell you why your product is special, what are you building? Right. You should know those things before you get too deep into it all. And you can ask it the questions and get a little deeper and more clarity maybe. But it’s still your idea. I don’t know, all the social stuff that’s like, oh, start making money today. And here’s, you know, all these ideas that AI has just has to create a software.
31:05
Do you have any joy in it? Is that even an industry you want to be in? Like, sure, there might be money in it, but if it’s not what you enjoy doing, then don’t even start. that’s big because, starting a company, one, it’s hard. Yeah, it’s incredibly difficult. And a lot of times, you know, there are a lot of opportunities to quit. And unless you really have that deep why and really understand why you’re building, why it matters, why you care. And you’re really passionate about what that is.
31:34
It’s probably not going to go anywhere, but then the opposite can happen. Maybe it takes off and you get successfully stuck doing something you hate. Right. Well, I mean, that was what you’re building, right? Is like something you hope takes off. Yes. And so, yeah, do you really want to be stuck in it? And that’s how I’ve said with like any job is you need to enjoy it. If you’re not, then you got to keep moving and get to the next thing and whatever that looks like. I think there’s places where, you know, AI has made it a little bit easier to say, hey, I like this.
32:04
teach me more, tell me more. what else, you how can I get better at this skill or how can I dive deeper into this little piece? But at the end of the day, that’s the whole piece. Investors even, they want to see that you’re passionate about what you’re building and putting it together. So if you’re building this and you’re just like, why does everyone keep saying no? It’s because it’s obvious that you don’t actually know or like the program that you’re building. You’re just trying to get rich quick and it’s not gonna work.
32:32
I think especially in today’s market, the prospects can smell that a mile away. And if it’s not something that you love, it’s just another me too, trying to build an exit. Nobody wants to be a part of that. No, and I mean, think that’s something even with like, I joke all the time when, know, like, yes, we do digital asset protection. I genuinely enjoy it. And there’s so much, I had laugh with every IT company and go,
33:00
but you hate hunting down logins. I know that. I’m like, yeah, I don’t want to do that. And I’m like, we actually enjoy it. That’s what we want to do. We’ve already, we do it regularly for clients. It’s not anything different for us to do. We’ve been doing it for years, but that just also means we’re good at it. We know how to go about it. We’ve done so much recovery, but I’m also so passionate of like, that’s your business. Why does someone else own this? Why if you’re acquiring,
33:28
Do you not know what you just acquired to even ask to bring it over? And now we’re wasting more money just to rebuild something that you should have just asked them for when you acquired. And so, you know, there were these pieces where it was like, it’s been my model since day one. You own everything. No matter what I set up, you own it. And so, but when I started realizing other agencies don’t work like that, that’s when I was like, okay, okay, there’s a clear like…
33:56
uh ethical differentiator between our tree ring and what I’m building compared to. So that’s where it was like more of a natural progression for us to start doing digital asset protection compared to other companies that are like, oh no, we want you on our recurring payment plan. We want you on this. So we’re going to own it. And if you decide to go off, you have to rebuild your site because it’s on our proprietary CMS. That doesn’t make any sense in my mind.
34:23
their company it does. you got to understand those pieces. it’s certainly not for, it’s for the agency’s benefit, not for the company’s. And it’s definitely very one-sided. And I would even say a little predatory. Oh yeah. They’re just like, oh, we have, they sell it so well. We’ve got our own proprietary CMS to build the website that the client themselves can never even find support on if they did a Google search. Why? That doesn’t make sense. But you’re right. It’s just a
34:52
Predatory like I want you to stay my client whether you like us or not and I want you to keep paying me because I don’t want to go find more work Yeah, ours is we want to make you happy and if you’re not then go someplace else But we’re gonna do the right work to make sure you’re staying happy and getting the results you want That’s good Well, let’s talk metrics. I think founders often get fixated on things like, you know cost per click or you know, click through rate things like that What’s a more holistic way to evaluate whether marketing is really working?
35:22
I think one, just looking at everything from start to finish, right? It is very easy and a lot of companies will get caught up in like, what’s the conversion rate on our ads or what is our page rank? If we’re running SEO or how many views did we get on the social post? That’s only a fraction of the story. The whole story is, did it convert over? Did they make it to your website? You can be ranking number one, but if no one came to your website then…
35:50
We’re in the wrong area. We’re not going after the right keyword. If they make it to your site and they’re not converting to engaging with as a potential client, as a lead in some sort, we got the wrong audience. We’re not driving the right traffic to the website. If we get them to the site and it’s not converting maybe the website to what we said earlier, isn’t actually telling the story that we need to get them to take that next action. I see it often where it’s like, contact us today to schedule an appointment.
36:17
And then it’s like, why not just let them schedule right then and there online? Why do they have to contact you, wait three days for a response and hope that diamond date works for you? So like really teeing them up for that next step. And so that’s another place to really look at. And we’ll even get as deep as like, did they start the form and not submit? Did they start checkout and not submit? Because maybe they didn’t like your pricing. Maybe they didn’t like your return policy. Maybe they didn’t like your shipping fees.
36:44
let’s start identifying where are they at in that cycle? Cause the marketing is only a small fraction of what that looks like. And then is your sales team able to close or not? Are you responding fast enough for what they want? Are you clear enough in, you know, the way you’re talking about the company that they actually want to do business with you. So there’s way more touch points along that than most people realize. And that’s something that we really pride ourselves on like bridging that gap to see that whole journey instead of.
37:13
Well, hey, we got 200 people to your site. That’s great. We got 2,000 people to your site. That’s great. Doesn’t mean anything. We can all do that. Yes. Yes. What advice would you give to SaaS founders who are maybe overwhelmed with marketing? They know it’s critical to growth, but where should they start? Start one.
37:36
Is it really your role to be doing the marketing or are you more focused on like the SaaS or the business development? Like what is that area of expertise for you? Because I think in the tech space, it’s very easy to say, well, I can do that too. I can do that also. And so I think that’s the first place is really identifying is it your sweet spot and is it what you love? Because if marketing is not the part of building out a SaaS that you like, then don’t do it.
38:03
get someone else involved who is, you will see much better results for the money you’re investing. Then you try and even if it’s, you know, Hey, it’s time compared to money. You’ll see better results by investing that money and someone who genuinely enjoys that aspect. And then second is really understand where is that audience? There are far too many places to be advertising today to just still be stuck in. I just want to run Google ads yet or
38:30
I’m just going to launch it on social and hope that it triggers and works. And I get all this business. The hoping model is not going to work today. And second of all, you can be everywhere from Reddit to, you know, Google ads to display ads to YouTube ads, to social media, to reels compared to, you know, timelines and groups. There’s so many places that it gets overwhelming. So where is that exact audience that needs that tool? Is it direct outreach? it?
39:00
speaking, what does that look like? And you’re going to find better results in marketing than feeling like you need a 10, 20, $30,000 a month budget just to get the revenue that you’re looking for. like that. That hope isn’t a strategy. think you’re right. A lot of founders, it is something that they think that they have to do or they can do. And sometimes that’s true. It’s not their expertise, but certainly having outside help.
39:30
that where they have that expertise is critical. But a of them, think, jump into marketing, hoping that it’s a silver bullet. You know, I’m going to just like we said in the beginning, I’m going to play some ads and we’re going to sell some stuff. How do you guide them to build long-term, you know, resilient marketing foundations? It’s like, you you said, I love the example, you know, the concrete can’t come before the rebar. So if you’re building a foundation, you know, here’s, here’s, there’s an order of things and not just.
39:57
chasing those quick hacks, but how do you really build that foundation for the long term so you get the results that you’re looking for? One is just slowing down. know, we’re all, especially in SaaS, everyone’s just trying to get to market, right? Getting to market with a crappy product or getting to market with the wrong audience is not going to get you anywhere faster. So it’s better to slow down and be like, how is our product doing? Have we tested it? What does all of this look like? But also,
40:26
have we identified the right audience? And do we really know what that looks like? And do we know how to speak to that right audience? You might think you know everything about your product, but especially in SaaS, a lot of times it’s education. A lot of times it’s they don’t know that your solution is there. Or why would I pay for your solution when this other one exists and is cheaper? So there’s a lot more education that goes into that. So you can talk about it all day long.
40:54
But if your messaging isn’t tight, then it’s not going to get the results that you want. So really slowing down to do those few exercises before just jumping in. And then same thing we talked about earlier, know why. Why are you going to run that campaign? Why are you going to spend that much money on marketing if you don’t know what the outcome is that you want? And if you say the outcome you want is just more subscribers, then we really got to slow down and go.
41:21
but how are we gonna convince them to sign up? What is that journey that’s gonna build trust, especially if you want them paying you, to make them say, yes, I trust this company to start entering data into their platform and hope that it’s gonna work and stay with them long time. Wow, fantastic. Well, where can we learn more about you and about TreeRing Digital online? Yeah, so LinkedIn is a great place to find me. It’s Page Weese, W-I-E-S-E. And then you can also find us on treeringdigital.com.
41:51
And then as far as some of the digital assets and just what does that even mean and how do I dive deeper or where should I start? think a lot of SaaS companies like we talked about are like, well, I do the tech. I understand that I’ve got them all handled and under control. There’s, as you mentioned, 300 data points that go into all of this. So you can also go to trueringdigital.com slash fuel, download our checklist, and that’ll start to give you a little more framework and idea of like.
42:16
Do you have gaps? Are you going in the right direction? How do you start protecting your company, especially as you’re building that out as a founder and really start off on the right foot instead of trying to find it all later or after a disaster? Outstanding. We’ll make sure and link all of that in the show notes and especially the assessment. I think that’s really helpful. So I encourage you to check that out. it’s a good tool. Yeah. Well, it’s been really valuable today. Thank you for being on SaaS Fuel.
42:42
Thanks so much for having me. I enjoyed our conversation. Thanks again, Paige, for coming on the show and sharing your insights and resources. You can learn more about Paige and her company, Tree Ring Digital, at treeringdigital.com. As always, all links, highlights, resources, and full show notes are available at sasfuel.com. And be sure to check out our channel on YouTube. It’s at Champion Leadership. One the things I’ve just dropped is a 15-part series on how to build a company that is valuable.
43:12
for the next five to 10 years in an AI market, how to make the transitions, how to really become future proof. So go check that out over there on YouTube. know, thought leaders share, share this episode with the person who says, this could be huge before validating literally anything. We all have people like that in their lives. And everyone who shares this week gets a pre-revenue confidence package. It includes irrational optimism to investor buzzwords.
43:41
and absolutely no market research at all. What if the key to better performance isn’t more data, but better human insight? Well, next up we have James Warren, founder of Share More Stories. He joins us to explore how storytelling, AI, and research can uncover the emotional drivers shaping employee and customer experiences. And then one week from today, how should tech professionals think about wealth building differently than everyone else?
44:10
Well, Stan Leong will be with us. He is a former engineer turned private wealth advisor and author of engineering your finances. He shares how analytical thinking and discipline strategy can transform long-term financial planning. So I’ll see you next time. And as always, enjoy the journey. for listening to SAS Fuel. Full show notes for each episode, which includes a summary, key takeaways, quotes, and any resources mentioned are available at SASFuel.com.
44:41
Be sure to follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you’re enjoying the content and getting value from these episodes, please leave us a rating and review at ratethispodcast.com slash SAS Fuel. We’ll be sure to read these out on future episodes.