How Do You Get AI to Recommend Your Business Instead of a Competitor? [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 158]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;21;24

Bob Ruffolo

The world is changing. And you're probably saying, I need AI to recommend my company. There are very specific tactics you can do to help AI to understand your company and recommend your brand more. Make sure you stick around to the end of the episode, because we're going to cover a whole handful of tactics that you could be implementing right now to help increase your brand visibility.

00;00;21;26 - 00;00;40;14

Stephanie Baiocchi

You're listening to the Endless Customers podcast, brought to you by the team at impact. Endless customers is the proven system to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. If you want to learn the principles of endless customers and how you can implement them in your business, pick up a copy of Endless Customers, a national bestseller wherever books are sold.

00;00;40;15 - 00;01;02;04

Stephanie Baiocchi

Ready to start implementing endless customers in your business? Talk to impact about how our coaching program can help you implement endless customers to success. And if you want to experience endless customers in person, don't miss our upcoming event! Endless Customers live in Hartford, Connecticut October 5th through the seventh, 2026. Registration is now open. And now onto the show.

00;01;02;06 - 00;01;04;26

Stephanie Baiocchi

Here's your host, Bob Buffalo.

00;01;04;28 - 00;01;30;10

Bob Ruffolo

Welcome everyone to the Endless Customers podcast. Very excited. We have a great episode today. The world is changing. You know that. I know that AI is changing everything right now. A lot of companies are doing SEO and they were doing SEO really, really well. But now we have to think about AI visibility. And that is dramatically, dramatically changing things because things are still important with SEO, still matter for AI visibility.

00;01;30;10 - 00;01;47;23

Bob Ruffolo

But what we're seeing now is that there are certain things that matter so much more for AI visibility, the impact search to but impact AI visibility. And we're going to go over all of that today. We have a great guess. She is no stranger to the Endless Customers podcast. No stranger to you? They asked me. Answer endless customers.

00;01;47;23 - 00;01;55;22

Bob Ruffolo

Been doing it for years, doing it better than most companies. Welcome Corinne Cook from Berry Insurance to the Endless Customers podcast. Again, good to see you.

00;01;55;28 - 00;01;57;26

Corin Cook

Thank you. You too. It's great to be back.

00;01;57;27 - 00;02;05;07

Bob Ruffolo

So Corinne, really quick, for those that don't know, give a really quick overview of what Berry Insurance does and who you help.

00;02;05;09 - 00;02;19;20

Corin Cook

Sure. So we are a small to medium sized insurance agency in Massachusetts, both commercial and personal insurance. We've been around for over 100 years serving Massachusetts and some surrounding states.

00;02;19;20 - 00;02;22;23

Bob Ruffolo

And you've been there every year of those years?

00;02;22;26 - 00;02;25;26

Corin Cook

Yeah, exactly. I look so young for my age, right?

00;02;26;03 - 00;02;29;09

Bob Ruffolo

Well, you joined Barry, what, probably 6 or 7 years ago.

00;02;29;10 - 00;02;30;18

Corin Cook

2019? Yes.

00;02;30;19 - 00;02;38;02

Bob Ruffolo

Okay. Yeah. That's where we remember when you first joined and you started as a concept manager, and you've worked your way up, and now your current title is.

00;02;38;05 - 00;02;39;02

Corin Cook

Senior marketing manager.

00;02;39;04 - 00;03;06;05

Bob Ruffolo

Senior marketing manager. So you've seen all these changes firsthand and so cringe really led the entire implementation of them. They ask, you answer now, endless customers and all the other marketing efforts that they're doing there. So Corinne, obviously AI is changing things. So let's just start really high level. What are you seeing in your business? Where are you focused right now in terms of how you're addressing AI at Berry Insurance?

00;03;06;07 - 00;03;25;25

Corin Cook

Yeah, it's it's been a huge focus. I think, you know, it's been a few years now, but we you know, with the traditional SEO, you know, cutting off ends, getting more into the spectrum of things. We saw a big dip in traffic, I think around like 2014 ish at the end of 2014.

00;03;25;27 - 00;03;26;19

Bob Ruffolo

24.

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Corin Cook

Oh yeah. Oh my gosh.

00;03;29;05 - 00;03;29;10

Bob Ruffolo

No.

00;03;29;12 - 00;03;45;18

Corin Cook

All good. So really, you know, since then focusing on trying to do our best, you know? Yeah. Trial and error because we didn't know what we were doing at first. And sometimes it still feels like we don't know what we're doing because it's all just trying to figure it out as things change.

00;03;45;20 - 00;04;03;29

Bob Ruffolo

It's the wild, wild West right now, for sure. For most. Businesses for sure. And by the way, when you're hearing, all right. Why would they bring in an expert on who's seen a dip in traffic. They don't know what they're doing. No. Most businesses, especially if they're doing inbound marketing really, really well, they've seen a dip in website traffic here even at impact.

00;04;04;05 - 00;04;44;07

Bob Ruffolo

I'm not even sure if you know this. We used to get almost a million visitors a month to our website. I think we were like 800,000 visitors a month in our at our peak, we're getting like 30,000 a month right now. So as a go look at HubSpot statistics go. Most businesses that were doing content marketing really, really, really well have seen this dip, because what's happening is, you know, and for the audience that might not know this, we used to as researchers, as potential customers, we would all start at Google and we would start our search and we might say something very early in our research process, like, what insurance do I need for

00;04;44;07 - 00;05;00;29

Bob Ruffolo

my business? Or do I need a new roof for my house? Or what does it mean if there's a water spot? And what we would all do is we'd search that articles would come up, or pages of people's websites would come up. And as users, we would go in and out of websites. We liked what we saw. We stayed, maybe clicked around.

00;05;00;29 - 00;05;23;29

Bob Ruffolo

If we didn't, we hit the back button to the next blue link. But that was only a few years ago, and we are not fully realizing how much our user behavior changed, because now we go search the same question. Maybe we go to Google and just gives us the answer and just pulls off of berries, insurances, websites. They create so much great content just answering the question right there and the user never goes to Berry's website.

00;05;24;00 - 00;05;41;22

Bob Ruffolo

Same thing with ChatGPT learns everything from berries insurance website, about everything about Massachusetts insurance, and whether there's a question that's always going to cite you guys, but they never go to your website until they are ready to go to your website because they want to work with you. So I just want to address website traffic being down because we're all dealing with it.

00;05;41;22 - 00;05;59;02

Bob Ruffolo

So anyways, good. So and you guys so you said you didn't first know what you were doing. And none of us were all learned this rapidly and it's rapidly changing. But what have you learned over these last few months or last year or so?

00;05;59;07 - 00;06;19;07

Corin Cook

Yeah. So it's a lot of just kind of stuff on the back end of the website that's not really directed towards the customer. It's more directed towards for, for AI to see. So we've added a lot of like website schema, we've added a lot of pages to influence AI to pull from us and get our website out and available.

00;06;19;13 - 00;06;29;02

Corin Cook

So it's been a lot less content for the customers and a lot more like focusing on optimizing our website and creating some more internal stuff.

00;06;29;05 - 00;06;38;07

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. So making your your website more accessible and readable for for AI platforms if you don't know what schema. Okay.

00;06;38;09 - 00;06;42;04

Speaker 4

I gotta pull it off okay.

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Speaker 4

Sorry about that.

00;06;43;15 - 00;06;46;19

Bob Ruffolo

Nope. No problem.

00;06;46;21 - 00;06;54;18

Speaker 4

Show back up.

00;06;54;21 - 00;06;58;05

Bob Ruffolo

Trying to hide the.

00;06;58;07 - 00;07;02;19

Bob Ruffolo

The minimal button. There you go.

00;07;02;21 - 00;07;04;00

Speaker 4

Sorry about that.

00;07;04;02 - 00;07;07;23

Bob Ruffolo

Okay. No problem.

00;07;07;26 - 00;07;25;00

Bob Ruffolo

And for those of you that don't know what schema is, we're going to actually do a whole episode on schema coming up. But is certain code that you put in your site recommended by Google and AI platforms that helps you put the information into certain labels so they can better understand and read your website if you're not using schema.

00;07;25;01 - 00;07;48;20

Bob Ruffolo

Very, very important right now for both SEO and for you. So so great. And then you talked about certain content you're creating. Now I know you weren't endless customers live in Chicago. You've been to many of them. We hung out in Hartford at the end of the conference. But you did watch Marcus's session or his whole AI day.

00;07;48;22 - 00;07;58;12

Bob Ruffolo

I know you guys took some action on some of the things that you learned there. So high level. What did you learn from Marcus talk that you're like, This is something we should be doing here at bury.

00;07;58;15 - 00;08;21;15

Corin Cook

Certain website pages that we jumped on creating to just create trust and transparency. And it was mostly intended for, you know, AI to read. But also, looking back, I think it's good to have some of these pages if clients do come across them because they're still valuable to to customers and prospects who want to know like that, you're trustworthy.

00;08;21;15 - 00;08;22;02

Corin Cook

Incredible.

00;08;22;02 - 00;08;48;06

Bob Ruffolo

So yeah. Yeah. You know, it's it's interesting like SEO, the way I usually describe the people, it's, you know, how well did you run your website mattered in C.O. there are some other things, like internal links and your Google profiles and reviews and certain things like that, but it was so much more heavily weighted on your on page optimization, the keywords that you picked and long form content and all that.

00;08;48;10 - 00;09;16;15

Bob Ruffolo

The big shift I'm seeing with Ayo at the most simplest term, it matters. Website still matters, but matters much less. And what matters so much more is your brand. Because it's now AI is can look at so much information so much faster than we ever were able to do before, and now it's everything it knows about Berry insurance it's going to be using to say, well, if you're looking for someone to help you with insurance in Massachusetts.

00;09;16;16 - 00;09;39;21

Bob Ruffolo

This is the company you should talk to. And that is things like your credibility, the bios of the people that work there, how long they work there, how happy they are working there. From your glass door reviews, everything that your customers are saying about you online and literally any website that could possibly be saying it on whether it be review sites or other insurance websites or Reddit or social media.

00;09;39;23 - 00;10;00;23

Bob Ruffolo

And that's public facing. Awards matter so much. Your BB rating is like all of a sudden you have a resurgence, like how important your BB rating is. So all these things really matter, and there are things that you need to be doing to your website, as Marcus pointed out. And what Barry interests is doing really, really well to bring all that.

00;10;00;25 - 00;10;21;20

Bob Ruffolo

So saying, yeah, we have this stuff here, let's make it really easy for you to find it and see it, and then you can add that to what you know about us and then cross-reference everything else that's on the internet. So so that's what we'll go through today. And maybe we'll start with your bio pages. Sure. So what what what why and what have you learned about bio pages being so important?

00;10;21;22 - 00;10;24;20

Bob Ruffolo

What actions did you take to improve your bio pages?

00;10;24;23 - 00;10;45;22

Corin Cook

You know, that was when area that we actually didn't really need to take any action on. We've always had, I think, pretty strong bio pages. I think that's just been part of our brand. It's who we are. We want our employees and our insurance agents to be out there and known by the clients and everything. So we have very personable bio pages with bio videos, information about them on a personal level.

00;10;45;25 - 00;10;49;29

Corin Cook

So we really didn't need to take any action there. So that was a good first step I suppose.

00;10;50;02 - 00;11;20;16

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. No that's great. That's great. And there's that old principle that Google's always said E8 expertise, experience and trustworthiness. And that is really the purpose of having great bio pages with videos and great content. So you're really, you know, if anyone in your company has won awards. I'm not sure if you guys have that in your bio pages, but if anyone's won awards, make sure that's really clearly shown on each individuals bio page with links.

00;11;20;18 - 00;11;54;26

Bob Ruffolo

If they are getting any other media appearances, maybe they're on a podcast or in every time you're on our podcast, you should be on your bio page. Again, that's showing your authority, because what you're saying to AI, when you do things like this and you build out these robust, well thought out bio pages for each member of the company, you're saying really smart, educated, experienced people you can trust with authority or just go through all the I went out of order there, but these types of people work in this company, and that's giving more authority to your company and say, this is a company we should take seriously, because people who win awards and they're

00;11;54;26 - 00;12;08;14

Bob Ruffolo

asked to speak their asked to to be on you. No other people's websites are being cited across the internet. These people matter at this company and the videos are so important to because that brings that human layer that these are people you can trust.

00;12;08;20 - 00;12;09;19

Corin Cook

Yeah, definitely.

00;12;09;20 - 00;12;23;20

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. What would you say on those pages that you do exceptionally well? Is there anything like, hey, if you're, you don't have good pages, like go look at hours because I think this is something we do really well on our pages.

00;12;23;22 - 00;12;45;19

Corin Cook

I think just the personality of it. I think a lot of websites and a lot of companies, you know, take themselves a little too seriously. But we put out like, you know, Shelly loves to foster dogs and collects turtles. You know what I mean? Like turtle figurines. It's just like fun facts about people. And we don't really hold back on, like the personal level, which I think is really good.

00;12;45;20 - 00;12;49;12

Corin Cook

Yeah. And that, you know, that helps on so many levels.

00;12;49;15 - 00;13;05;14

Bob Ruffolo

Well, people do business with people they know, like and trust. It's always been a principle of they ask, you answer so the more you can make yourself shine of this is what we like. It's funny, in my bio I talk about, you know, I root for the Ohio State Buckeyes is my football team. I mentioned that I like to run.

00;13;05;14 - 00;13;20;16

Bob Ruffolo

I like to, you know, I have a love bourbon and it's so funny. People read those bios and when they when they open up a conversation with me, it's like they, they're telling me about their favorite bourbon or they're saying that they're, you know, they root for the team up north for God knows what reason or you know, that they also run.

00;13;20;16 - 00;13;27;08

Bob Ruffolo

They ask me if I have ever done marathon, and you know that that opens up so many doors for relationships, which is really, really cool.

00;13;27;10 - 00;13;39;19

Corin Cook

Yeah, and this is a little off topic, but I think it helps a lot with hiring to because people come in and they look at your website and they get to know you and they know if they're if they feel like they're going to like you and they're going to fit in. And if it's part of, you know, the type of place they want to work.

00;13;39;19 - 00;13;42;19

Corin Cook

And I think that's helped us find some good talents as well.

00;13;42;22 - 00;14;05;03

Bob Ruffolo

It's a really, really good point because again, AI, when they're making their recommendations, it takes everything it knows about your company. And if you appear to be a company that people want to work for, that's a factor. I mean, I can't explain how all this works. It's like trying to most people when it comes to AI, people at build a AI will say, we don't even know how it works.

00;14;05;03 - 00;14;24;22

Bob Ruffolo

So I'm not going to say and try to be an expert, say how it works. All I know is you know everything about your brand and how people feel about your brand, who work there, who are potential customers or audience members or whoever it is, whatever they're saying online or possibly say online, what it knows about you. That's what matters.

00;14;24;22 - 00;14;30;14

Bob Ruffolo

So you're the more you strengthen your brand, the better AI visibility will be.

00;14;30;16 - 00;14;31;14

Corin Cook

Yeah. Definitely.

00;14;31;14 - 00;14;51;16

Bob Ruffolo

Good. All right. So I'm looking at my notes here. The next thing we talked about was you guys have always had a great pricing page. Marcus, in that session you talked about the importance of a pricing page and the perfect pricing page and all the factors that go into it. What are some of the things that you feel like you've done exceptionally well in that pricing page that you would recommend to people look at as well?

00;14;51;18 - 00;15;05;03

Corin Cook

Well, that's a that's a loaded question because I feel like the pricing page was very hard for us. You know, we work with a lot of carriers. We don't set our own rates. We don't we can't tell you what our pricing is going to be. And plus there are so many factors that go into quoting people's insurance.

00;15;05;03 - 00;15;22;02

Corin Cook

So it was really kind of hard to create that page. But it's all again about transparency. We did the best we could to say, hey, we can't give you a straight answer. This is kind of what you can expect. Yes, this is a huge range we're showing you. But you're going to have to like, you know, talk to us to to figure it out further.

00;15;22;09 - 00;15;31;18

Corin Cook

You know, we wish we could say more. So it's just really about just being real and creating transparency and doing the best we could. But it was definitely a challenge.

00;15;31;20 - 00;15;56;02

Bob Ruffolo

No, Marcus made this case at Endless Customers Live. But you know what I did the other day? Karen, you'll probably love this. I went to I think we're going to do a whole episode, actually a deep research on this. I'm really excited for this. I went to chat GPT, and I said, if somebody went there and said, who is the best roofer in a certain area?

00;15;56;06 - 00;16;13;24

Bob Ruffolo

And you change roofer out? And I think that's what we'll do when we do this research. How would you select the one that you would recommend is the question I asked, and it went through its entire process of telling me how it would create a short list and how it would filter out that list and how it would make its top recommendation.

00;16;13;24 - 00;16;34;14

Bob Ruffolo

And then here's how it would pick the runner ups. In the beginning, it said it would have a little bit more context. It would say things like, you know, first I would ask them what type of roofer they're looking for, what type of project would be, and then I would go and I would look at all these different things, and I wouldn't just go to who ranks at number one on Google.

00;16;34;14 - 00;16;51;24

Bob Ruffolo

I wouldn't just say who has the most reviews of the highest reviews. I'd go much deeper. It told me all the things I would do. And then when I start filtering people out, it's like, who has great education, who has this type of offers and all this type of stuff. Pricing came up consistently of people that are addressing pricing transparently on the site.

00;16;51;24 - 00;16;53;23

Corin Cook

And yeah, absolutely.

00;16;53;23 - 00;17;18;15

Bob Ruffolo

So AI is basically when I did this exercise, I did it for roofers for counts. I did for like 3 or 4 industries every single time it talked about pricing. So if you're not addressing pricing on your website, you're already telling A is already going to limit you in their recommendations and you're doing it right. The only thing that you do on your pricing page now, Marcus, gives you a much more detailed list, but it's exactly what you just said.

00;17;18;16 - 00;17;36;00

Bob Ruffolo

If someone were to ask you, how much will it cost for me to work with you, just answer it the way you would say to a human, exactly. That's the best way to do it. And if you can organize that information and say, okay, well, you know, here's the factors that make it go up, here's what factors would make it go down.

00;17;36;00 - 00;17;46;24

Bob Ruffolo

So you can know you might be on the higher end. If you have this stuff going on, you might be at the lower end if you got this stuff going on. If you want this, you might make go higher. You just answer it like you would adjust to a human.

00;17;46;25 - 00;17;59;11

Corin Cook

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think sometimes people overcomplicate AI too, because it is. That's exactly what it is. It's supposed to think like a human. So if you just put yourself in a choose, I know if I'm going to a website looking for something and pricing is not there, I'm moving on like.

00;17;59;12 - 00;18;20;07

Bob Ruffolo

Exactly, exactly. And AI talks to you like a human too. So if you say, hey, how much is going to cost for me to have homeowner's insurance? Dot dot dot AI is going to be like, well, that's kind of a loaded question. It depends. Yeah. And then they'll start asking you more questions about your situation and where you're located and all that type of stuff.

00;18;20;07 - 00;18;38;22

Bob Ruffolo

And then it'll it'll be able to start formulating the answer. But when, you know, companies like Barry Insurance are addressing all the factors that make it go up and down and give you a range, it's pulling in that information. And if you're in Massachusetts, one of the questions AI will probably wrap up with is, would you like me to recommend a company for you to talk to?

00;18;38;25 - 00;19;03;05

Bob Ruffolo

And someone says, yes, and hopefully they're going to say very insurance. So, great. We talked about schema a little bit. And one of the most important things with schema is your FAQs and FAQ pages. So talk to me about your approach with FAQ page because I know everyone knows at this point when we say aiyo, it's answer engine optimization.

00;19;03;05 - 00;19;16;21

Bob Ruffolo

So answering questions. The more FAQs that people have on their websites, the better because they're short snippet answers to questions. And that's what Google and AI loves. So how are you guys approaching it? Barry.

00;19;16;24 - 00;19;33;18

Corin Cook

Yeah, so I mean we definitely took a very like they ask you answer approach to that one because we know what people are asking and we and we didn't like hold back like it's a very long page that we have. There's a lot of questions on there. We didn't really leave anything out because we just figured like the more answers on there, the better.

00;19;33;18 - 00;19;41;18

Corin Cook

If someone's looking for them, we want it to be there and available. So we just kind of like thought of everything we could that people might be asking and just loaded it in there.

00;19;41;19 - 00;19;50;11

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah, great. What about FAQs? Do you do them in your articles now? Do you do them on every single page like all your service pages?

00;19;50;13 - 00;19;57;10

Corin Cook

Yep. We have an FAQ section on all of our service pages as well. So that's part of the strategy for sure.

00;19;57;10 - 00;20;15;28

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. Yeah I think that's just a tactic that anyone could say is like, all right, how do I do better with AOL right now? Just there's really no reason not to have FAQs on any pages on your website, just the section at the bottom of the page, even your bio pages. You could probably add FAQs like, you know, what questions might people have around you?

00;20;16;00 - 00;20;35;25

Bob Ruffolo

Or Caitlin or Chris, you know, has has how long? You know, one question could be like, how long has Caitlin worked at Barry Insurance? And you just answer that one. Or has Caitlin won a awards? Just answer that one. Right. And then that way it's just building a more robust profile that you're essentially just answering questions for AI.

00;20;35;27 - 00;20;37;19

Corin Cook

Yeah, that's an interesting thought.

00;20;37;21 - 00;21;01;18

Bob Ruffolo

I know when we're looking at rebuilding out our website, we've been working on this ourselves. We're building out essentially entire knowledge base of all the base material for endless customers and even working with our coaches and our programs and stuff. And it's just going to be all questions and answers. This could be a giant FAQ section, so you can ask a question, will drill down to another, you know, section.

00;21;01;18 - 00;21;12;07

Bob Ruffolo

We'll answer that question and have even more sub questions. It's just a giant FAQ section of the website, a little bit more structured, almost like a knowledge base might be. So that's another way to do it.

00;21;12;11 - 00;21;14;01

Corin Cook

Interesting.

00;21;14;03 - 00;21;37;03

Bob Ruffolo

Cool. All right. Let's go on to the next big page which is reviews. So, we know reviews are important. One of the things that Marcus talks about in that that session is that. And if you go ahead and if you don't believe me, validate this. These AI platforms, for whatever reason, can't read Google reviews. Yeah, it's like shocking.

00;21;37;03 - 00;21;52;15

Bob Ruffolo

So most of our companies were investing in getting Google reviews because it's so important for our SEO presence. And that is a core place. Our reviews all live, but I can't read them. They don't have any access to them whatsoever. Yeah. So how are you proposing that?

00;21;52;17 - 00;22;15;19

Corin Cook

Yeah, we've definitely noticed that when we've run some reports it says you can really strengthen your reviews, but we have like 505 star reviews on Google, which is really good for a small Massachusetts only business and turns agency. So we built out a FAQ page that we, you know, and we keep it fresh. We make sure we have the the dates on there so they know they're relevant and trustworthy.

00;22;15;19 - 00;22;35;00

Corin Cook

And we make sure it covers, like all areas of insurance, all different areas of customer service. And I think we organized it into like responsiveness and customer service and like that sort of thing to make sure there was a big variety of the types of things we're doing. Well, yeah. So that's sort of the approach we took with that one.

00;22;35;02 - 00;22;54;26

Bob Ruffolo

You know, it's funny too, is when I did that, that search, I said, who are the best refers to the best counts, whatever I was going through. And what was said in reviews was a big actually in the response was a pretty long response, but I would say a big, heavy section of it. I'm looking for positive terms that would say things like this responsiveness, pricing, whatever.

00;22;54;26 - 00;23;11;23

Bob Ruffolo

It might be fair, it gave me exactly what it would look like. When I'm looking at a company like this, I want to see reviews that say this, and I want to see reviews that don't say this. And it had a whole nother list of the things that didn't want to say. So it's putting a lot of weight on that, which is cool.

00;23;11;23 - 00;23;32;05

Bob Ruffolo

But then we're also seeing that it can't see the reviews. So you got to kind of copy and paste these off of Google and put them on your site, cross-link back to Google to giving some kind of like realness and then, yeah, highlighting the ones that say the right things that Google's can or AI will tell you. I'm looking for reviews that say this.

00;23;32;05 - 00;23;54;25

Bob Ruffolo

So there's a tactic there. Just ask AI, you know, for, you know, if someone's asked who's the best insurance agency in Massachusetts, how would you select them? It'll tell you. It'll probably say, I'm looking for views that say this. And now you go find your reviews that say that and put that right in your review page with like average of how many reviews and all that type.

00;23;54;26 - 00;23;58;12

Bob Ruffolo

That's a tactic that that could work, which I'm sure you guys are doing something just like that.

00;23;58;13 - 00;23;59;12

Corin Cook

Totally true.

00;23;59;14 - 00;24;11;02

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. Wild wild. But of course, reviews and other sites, whether sites matter for you, for your company, do you probably. What was that? Whether sites for reviews matter for your company as well?

00;24;11;05 - 00;24;19;09

Corin Cook

Oh, we have some. I mean it's mainly Google that we have we do have some on on Yelp. But that's really that's really kind of it. Yeah.

00;24;19;12 - 00;24;41;03

Bob Ruffolo

Okay. Yeah. For a lot of the trades companies it might be like an antique list that might matter. Yelp definitely matters. And certainly in the trades for us it's the HubSpot directory is a big area or manually blank. And the other one right now, the for for marketing agencies we made an investment in. I'm not even thinking of it right now.

00;24;41;05 - 00;24;55;29

Bob Ruffolo

But yeah, so that's another tactic to talk about reviews. Google's one place, but you got to be looking for other places to that matter in your industry. And when you go and say, you know, where should an insurance agency be getting reviews? It might tell you,

00;24;56;01 - 00;24;57;13

Corin Cook

Okay, that's a good idea.

00;24;57;15 - 00;25;12;17

Bob Ruffolo

Another thing that I know matters to is like your profiles on maybe the carriers that you, you, you cover. So do you do anything with that as well, like cross-linking between, your care the type companies that you use.

00;25;12;18 - 00;25;24;08

Corin Cook

Really don't. We've never really put out there the carriers that we that we use for kind of all the standard ones. But yeah, no, that's not something that we've been doing right now.

00;25;24;11 - 00;25;29;22

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. I'm not sure if you guys have a presence or a profile on their websites. So that could be a cross-link up now.

00;25;29;24 - 00;25;31;06

Corin Cook

Yeah, yeah.

00;25;31;07 - 00;25;45;03

Bob Ruffolo

Okay. Good. So that's the reviews page. And this one, this one's a big one I, I think we we've underestimated this for a lot of years. The awards and recognition page. Yeah. So you guys have one right. And you guys get a lot of awards.

00;25;45;08 - 00;26;08;02

Corin Cook

We yeah we we built this out recently. It was always something I call an Caitlin out. She never really wants the self-promotion. So it was definitely a push with her to be like, we got to do this just for AI purposes. So we kind of just built it out, put it on the footprint of our website. So it's not like we're out there bragging about everything, but but yeah, we that was a recent thing that we put out there.

00;26;08;04 - 00;26;10;21

Corin Cook

And something that we've tried to consider more.

00;26;10;23 - 00;26;11;21

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah.

00;26;11;23 - 00;26;18;22

Corin Cook

Is putting out those awards and, and applying for the awards because we haven't really been doing that either. So new approach. Yeah.

00;26;18;23 - 00;26;46;27

Bob Ruffolo

We've I mean, we definitely took our foot off the gas of like all things. So we just, you know, buckle down the business. We focus on different things. And you know, because you're right, it almost seems like vanity, like we're bragging and. Yeah, but really matters. It's the cross-linking between, you know, the awards that matter. So when you say we win this award and you link to the page where you're being recognized on and they're linking back to you, that is a huge signal, huge trust signal to be investing in.

00;26;46;29 - 00;27;06;22

Bob Ruffolo

And it's not always just like best insurance agency awards, although those matter a lot. And you know, you know, that's a giant trust. And if you could say even if your website, if you do nothing else right, but you win best insurance agency in Massachusetts five years in a row and you put that on your home page, that is a giant signal.

00;27;06;25 - 00;27;39;02

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. But awards for best place to work on Glassdoor awards or best CEO awards or anything along those lines, those matter a lot too, because again, that just shows the quality of the business, which also is a giant trust as well. Yeah, I know so so have you guys. So what have you guys done a Barry how did you say hey Caitlin, you got to go ahead and do more of this and and what have you applied for now that more words.

00;27;39;06 - 00;27;56;27

Corin Cook

You know, luckily she's very receptive. And we decided we just got to do this for AI purposes. We won't put it out there, make it to to much of a big deal. We'll just, like, hide it on the website in the footer. But we've applied her to some awards and for, you know, see presidents of insurance companies and stuff.

00;27;56;27 - 00;28;01;10

Corin Cook

And we've been on the lookout for sure more for those, those types of awards.

00;28;01;12 - 00;28;09;02

Bob Ruffolo

I'm a huge Barry Insurance fan. I'm a huge Caitlin fan. So if you can send us where we can vote for you guys, do it.

00;28;09;03 - 00;28;09;28

Corin Cook

Because it will.

00;28;09;28 - 00;28;30;00

Bob Ruffolo

Do they deserve the votes is a very, very well run company. All right. So now let's get a little bit more to into some of the technical things, policies, guidelines, anything along those lines I know it sounds technical security. Have you tackled all those pages as well?

00;28;30;03 - 00;28;52;04

Corin Cook

Yeah. So I mean, we've always had a privacy policy page, of course, but we definitely bulked it up a bit. We reached out to our technology company and said like, okay, what exactly are we doing that we should be putting out there? And then from there, just basically ask ChatGPT like, what should this policy page look like to make it look like we are, you know, providing the security and everything?

00;28;52;07 - 00;29;22;02

Corin Cook

And then we've also added two other policy pages. We added a AI policy page to show how we're using AI, because I think it's important to be transparent about that, especially with so many people so hesitant about it. And then also like an editorial process page to show how we approach our content and the just to really make sure that it makes us look credible and that our content is legitimate and that it's well researched and that it's provided by experts.

00;29;22;04 - 00;29;26;11

Corin Cook

So those are kind of the three policy pages that we've been focused on.

00;29;26;13 - 00;29;42;22

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah, yeah, it's real process. One that that was new when Marcus said that at Endless Customers Live. I had never known even thought about that before. But this is the process we go through to make sure that the quality of the content meets a certain standard, and that you could trust the content we're putting out there.

00;29;42;24 - 00;29;54;01

Corin Cook

And again, that's one of those things that, yes, intentionally we did it for AI, to be honest. But I think it's one of those really good things. Like if someone ever happens to come across that, that's great for them to see as well, you.

00;29;54;01 - 00;30;20;18

Bob Ruffolo

Know, it is. But, you know, as website traffic keeps going down and bot traffic keeps going up, I mean, we're starting to enter a world where we're building websites more for AI than we're building it for users, which is like so weird to think about. You know, it's so wild. So what are you guys doing to measure and track your brand visibility in AI right now?

00;30;20;21 - 00;30;30;23

Corin Cook

So this is actually very new for us. So I think it's hard right now because we implemented most of these measures before we started tracking them. So it's hard to know like how much they've affected anything.

00;30;30;24 - 00;30;37;10

Bob Ruffolo

I'm guilty of that to like trust your gut. Like this is probably the right thing to do is to just do it. We'll measure it at some point. But yeah, that's yeah.

00;30;37;13 - 00;30;56;11

Corin Cook

It also it was like at the very beginning of things and we didn't know what tools to use and we didn't there weren't necessarily any great tools out there yet. So it was just one of those things we were like, okay, let's let's just hope this works. But but yeah, we've since started doing some of those recordings. We look at Marcus's AI report every month.

00;30;56;15 - 00;30;59;23

Corin Cook

We use like splash Dash, and we started with the.

00;30;59;24 - 00;31;00;11

Bob Ruffolo

Oh good.

00;31;00;18 - 00;31;09;13

Corin Cook

New tool. So those are some things we've been starting to like, dive into a little bit more to try to gain more of an understanding of what we're doing is working and what we can be doing better.

00;31;09;17 - 00;31;12;29

Bob Ruffolo

Have you seen a lift at all on any of the platforms?

00;31;12;29 - 00;31;24;27

Corin Cook

It's really only been like three months. We've had some indications that were doing well, like, compared to local competitors. It says we were kind of, you know, on, on top of, on top of things.

00;31;24;27 - 00;31;31;22

Bob Ruffolo

But super doing they ask answer forever. So you've had like this moat around your business that your competitors can't like break through. Yeah.

00;31;31;23 - 00;31;37;14

Corin Cook

Yeah. But yeah, it's really only about a few months that we've started like pulling comparing data. So we really don't have too much yet okay.

00;31;37;15 - 00;31;53;09

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. Very very cool. Good. So, Karin, if people want to be like Barry Insurance and they want to grow up and be just like you. What advice do you have for them right now? Like, what would what would you say? What are of operations? What? The tackle first.

00;31;53;10 - 00;32;17;01

Corin Cook

Oh, boy. There's so much I would start getting organized. That's what I have to do. Create a Google doc and kind of just focus on. I mean, as much as things are changing with AI, it's really not all that different. Yes, you might need to do more things on the back end of your website, but it still is about being human and providing answers and educating and being transparent.

00;32;17;01 - 00;32;21;15

Corin Cook

So even though it feels like a big shift, yeah, it's not all that scary once you get into it.

00;32;21;16 - 00;32;32;23

Bob Ruffolo

So yeah, no, it's it's funny, like we often talk especially with the business that we're in. You know, AI will give you a lot of direction on what to do. So all you have to do is ask.

00;32;32;27 - 00;32;35;29

Corin Cook

Exactly. Yeah. That makes it so much easier to because.

00;32;36;00 - 00;32;36;16

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah.

00;32;36;17 - 00;32;50;18

Corin Cook

While we felt like we were in the dark with some of these things like these, you know, policy pages, like what should they include? It's easy enough to go, hey chat GPT what what should this include to make us look trustworthy and show that we're credible? So there's tools there for sure.

00;32;50;19 - 00;33;11;25

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. So you know, as I think about this, it's it's definitely a very important first step in whether you're working with, you know, a strategist, expert, coach agency or whatever, just putting your website URL into one of these platforms and saying, what do we need to be doing from a marketing standpoint to get more customers? Simple as that.

00;33;11;26 - 00;33;13;27

Bob Ruffolo

It's going to tell you a whole bunch of things.

00;33;13;29 - 00;33;18;13

Corin Cook

Oh yeah, I've done that recently. I put it on our website and said, what could we be doing better?

00;33;18;14 - 00;33;19;02

Speaker 4

Yeah.

00;33;19;03 - 00;33;20;19

Corin Cook

Scan the website. What can we be doing better?

00;33;20;20 - 00;33;38;10

Bob Ruffolo

And it's going to come back with a lot of stuff. We talked about this episode, I promise. So it's going to give you other ideas too. And I think the value of having a coach or somebody else involved in this and you've gone through our coaching program is, you know, how do I still make sure I'm doing this right, just because I'm doing what AI is telling me?

00;33;38;11 - 00;34;01;03

Bob Ruffolo

You know, you don't have that experience in that expertise. Perspective is someone that's been there before and done this before to to review your work and give you feedback and make sure that you're not missing blind spots. So I think AI is important. What I've been telling people, it's like AI plus an expert human doing it together. 100 X's do the do the two together.

00;34;01;04 - 00;34;14;19

Bob Ruffolo

Because AI alone could also be like we've all had those experience with AI where like I don't think that's right. And it comes back like, you know, you're right. The question I was actually wrong on that. And it's like you still need somebody that's looking at both of those together.

00;34;14;23 - 00;34;36;10

Corin Cook

Definitely. Yeah. I say this all the time. I mean, we went through coaching for years. We took breaks. We've come back and we still reach out to coaches, all the impact coaches all the time with questions, because I think it's very important to have that respective especially like from my standpoint, I know about my business and what's going on here, not my business, Caitlin's business.

00;34;36;12 - 00;34;41;17

Bob Ruffolo

But I like that. I like that you see it as your business because you do. You always have.

00;34;41;20 - 00;34;57;08

Corin Cook

Yeah. No, definitely I for sure. But the coaches see other businesses to and they have so many other like anecdotes and know what other people are doing. Right. And so I always go back to, to the coaches there because their input is so valuable.

00;34;57;09 - 00;35;20;17

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah. Faster way to get done or you know, utilize these these tools are out there to get faster. Maybe AI is not recommending right now, but I would say even the most important part of it is someone holding you accountable. Like saying, okay, let's take all this, these recommendations AI has it gave you an order of operations, but why don't we really tighten up and make this a really good plan that we can follow and then hold you accountable to actually getting it all done?

00;35;20;18 - 00;35;37;05

Bob Ruffolo

Because it's very easy to get distracted and new things come up. And and, you know, this is a lot of stuff we talked about today. We talked about bio pages. We talked about FAQs. We talked about pricing page talked about reviews. We talked about awards and recognition, all these policy pages and editorial. It's a lot of stuff. Yeah.

00;35;37;07 - 00;35;50;16

Bob Ruffolo

And to to try to hammer through all of that, it can be overwhelming for, for a lot of companies. So good. So what what's what's like the biggest thing right now that you guys are focused on?

00;35;50;18 - 00;36;12;08

Corin Cook

There's a lot actually. Definitely continuing this stuff, figuring it out as we go, but at the same time, continuing to create content, do what we've always been doing, building our brands. As much as we create educational content, we really also prioritize the fun content and the content that shows our team, because that's always been who we are.

00;36;12;08 - 00;36;42;09

Corin Cook

And I think that's just so important to us. Yes. Yeah. We we have an intern for the summer who is just plugging away at a ton of the projects that have been our list that we have not gotten to yet. So that's awesome. And also totally, completely off topic, but very important. We've been working on a lot of internal stuff, so there's been a little bit of less external content coming up because we're really focused on creating internal documents and building our team on the inside, because, you know, that's never not going to be important.

00;36;42;09 - 00;36;55;05

Corin Cook

Even with AI, our team is always going to be so, so important. So we've really been building a strong team and strong processes internally as well. And market has been really playing a big role in creating some of those internal.

00;36;55;08 - 00;36;56;03

Bob Ruffolo

Yeah.

00;36;56;05 - 00;36;56;21

Corin Cook

And content.

00;36;56;22 - 00;37;17;29

Bob Ruffolo

You know, tactical tactics only matter so much. And if I wasn't tell anybody right now what's the number one thing I can do to get more customers in my business? I would say run a better business. Yeah. Be the best option that's out there for any possible customers and everything else will serve fall into place. Your content gets better when you have a great business to write about, right?

00;37;17;29 - 00;37;26;28

Bob Ruffolo

You're going to get great reviews naturally, when you have a great business that people want to say nice things about. So I think you're doing the right thing. The best marketing is is having a great business.

00;37;27;05 - 00;37;35;11

Corin Cook

That's totally true. Yeah, that's the most important thing. And then we can market based off of that rather than make stuff up, because we're not going to do that.

00;37;35;13 - 00;37;45;21

Bob Ruffolo

But you guys do have a great business. We're very proud of you. And so if anyone's in the Massachusetts area, because that's the only area you're serving right now, is Massachusetts still, right?

00;37;45;22 - 00;37;50;10

Corin Cook

Yes. Some commercial is outside other states, but personal is Massachusetts only.

00;37;50;10 - 00;38;01;02

Bob Ruffolo

Okay. Well, if you need insurance, you're frustrated with your company or you're just want a comparison. You want to do things better. You work with a great company and how they get in touch with Berry Insurance.

00;38;01;05 - 00;38;03;17

Corin Cook

Check out our website.

00;38;03;19 - 00;38;15;29

Bob Ruffolo

Go to the website Berry Insurance. And if anyone wants to pick your brain or anything about the things that you're doing from a marketing standpoint, they ask, you answer endless customers, all that stuff and how they get in touch with you.

00;38;16;02 - 00;38;23;20

Corin Cook

I am on LinkedIn and there's a forum on the website on my bio page, if you want to check out those bio pages we talked about so you can get in touch there.

00;38;23;21 - 00;38;35;16

Bob Ruffolo

Excellent. And we'll see you in Hartford in a few months. Yep. Excellent. All right. Let's customers and let's customers live our conference that happens in October in Hartford, Connecticut. So be great to see you there.

00;38;35;18 - 00;38;36;06

Corin Cook

Awesome.

00;38;36;09 - 00;38;38;16

Bob Ruffolo

All right. Great episode. Thank you so much.

00;38;38;17 - 00;38;40;28

Corin Cook

Thank you.

00;38;41;00 - 00;38;50;16

Bob Ruffolo

Perfect. All right. Actually I'll just do this really quick. And that's been another episode of the end of this customers podcast. Until next time. We'll see you there.

00;38;50;19 - 00;38;52;03

Stephanie Baiocchi

If you liked this episode, please Take a minute to leave us a review. Thanks for checking out the Endless Customers podcast.