Garrett Sussman: Inside SEO Week, I know you’re hyped. We’ve got someone brand new coming to the stage in April, I’m so excited. Lisa Paasche is joining us. If you don’t know Lisa, she is so freaking smart and it’s like my wheelhouse. I love this because you know we’re talking psychology, we’re talking neuroscience. She’s the mentor, coach, and advisor and founder at EKTE. She actually sold her original agency back in 2017 to Omnicon and since then has been a podcast host, a stand-up comedian; she basically does everything and she’s so cool. Lisa, how are you doing today? Thanks for joining me. 

Lisa Paasche: Thank you so much. I’m good, thanks. So happy to be here. 

Garrett: I want to dive right in. You have a long history in SEO, in PR. We are in a very weird, transitional period with our industry and you’re coming back into it. What is your perspective on AI search right now? What’s top of mind for you? 

Lisa: Yeah, I think it’s really fascinating how a lot of people are panicking and think, oh my God, SEO is dead. We hear this every two seconds. But I’ve never seen SEO as the name itself, I see SEO as the people that does it. And the people that does it are special kind of people, problem solvers, the hybrid kind of unicorn thinkers that can be creative and technical, that can figure out whatever the problem is, they can figure out how to solve that. And I really think that we need to calm our nerves a bit and know that whatever comes, whatever is new, SEOs are usually the ones that are the very forefront on it. And we see this also with AI. Like I’ve been using AI for years and I know that so many SEOs have also been really like getting into it, but it’s only really in the past year or so where people are talking about optimization for AI. Now, I don’t think we really need to worry too much about whether it’s SEO or AI search. That’s just the medium where it comes from. And what I do think is the prominent thing in all of it is, again, just doing the right stuff, making sure that you are found, but how you’re found is – to be fair, I think AI search is easier than SEO right now. I feel like it’s a bit like 2009 all over again. We’re like, woohoo, this is actually quite easy for now.

Garrett:  Expand on that. What do you think makes it easier for visibility in AI search versus like the way we’ve been used to the 10 blue links? 

Lisa: Because where SEO is super competitive and there’s like obviously so many, many websites for especially competitive terms, AI search is kind of still very early on, and the kind of algorithm for being chosen to be whatever the search is, is actually simpler for now. And it is kind of feels very much like, you know, the early days where it wasn’t just, you know, early days of SEO, it was very much about just the number of links. But what is really nice with AI is that the kind of stuff we did with digital PR, well, certainly my agency did with digital PR, is even more relevant now. Building the brand is not just about one channel. You have to think about the social, you have to think about being in the directories, on other websites, in the publications. So it’s a more all rounded approach to building the visibility of your brand or, or whatever it is. 

Garrett: I’m totally with you because it’s a really weird dichotomy right now where it’s like on the one hand, your brand and your connection to the real world has never mattered more. But then on the other hand, all those like old school subversive techniques work in a way, you know, like, yeah, like early days of, you know, the prompt ejections now like the white on white text. So you think this is easy now – what do you think the next like six to 12 months of SEO is going to look like? 

Lisa: I think it’s going to evolve really fast. And it is really going to put some pressure on people. And I think now the SEO industry is a lot bigger than it was when I first started. And that also makes it a little bit clunkier. And I’ve definitely seen like there’s a big difference in the SEO consultants and smaller operator and the big agencies. I think the ones that are going to suffer are the big agencies. So I don’t mind.

Garrett:  Well, expand on that. Why do you think that? How do you think that’s going to play out? 

Lisa: Because I think the bigger agencies and networks are going to struggle to move fast enough. And they’re kind of – not all SEOs within that – but they have less say. And it is too, you know, unless the person take on themselves to really do the research and really get into it, it is harder to really get the knowledge from those bigger, bigger agencies. And they’re kind of panicking a bit, I think, which is easy to do. 

Garrett: Yeah. I mean, we’re so scared of the unknown and justifiably. But at the same time, to your point, it’s like SEOs change is the norm, which kind of leads to my question to you of like, what are the problems that you’re most focused on in your work like right now? 

Lisa: Yeah, so I mostly work with agency leaders and their teams to help them really get the most out of collaborating. And so the thing that I’m focused on the most and which I think is very relevant now with AI is helping people understand that the limitations to what they can do is mostly to do with their thinking of what they can do. And as we are now kind of really speeding up in the technology of AI, it’s really important to make sure that everyone feels safe and don’t get triggered. So I’ve done a lot of studying in the last few years within the neuroscience and psychology, and that’s always been my interest field. And so one of the things that I really focus on is helping people understand how their brain works and how the nervous system works. And so one of the – the most important thing is that it is really hard to really think and analyze and come up with ideas if your sympathetic nervous system, your fight or flight, is triggered. And so the first thing that’s important, especially in an area of big change, is to make people feel safe and to really encourage people to think and to be creative and not be afraid of trying something new and thinking it’s a promise. 

Garrett: It feels really hard right now, like between AI search and, you know, we were talking before, like just also global politics and economies and everything is in a different weird space. How do you…how do you recommend people find safety? Like where should they find that safety right now? 

Lisa: So I think one of the principal areas for for harnessing safety is community. It is going back to the basics. And humans are literally wired to care for each other. And so this is one of the things that I think is the most important thing for everywhere right now, is to be kind and to help others. And there’s something magical that happens when you do something nice for someone. I used to in my agency we had this thing called love week which we did every quarter and so for a whole week you picked someone’s name and you did something nice for that person and they did something nice for someone else and it was like secret so you were like a secret angel so you had to be like covert about it and then the thing that happened – and so we did this for many years, and because I’m an SEO geek I have data on everything, and I had a metric of performance that we had within the business. And one year, I actually put all the activity that we’ve done for engaging performance, like, you know, salary increases, bonuses, and Love Week. And the only thing that increased performance was Love Week. 

Garrett: Really? That’s fascinating. 

Lisa: Isn’t it? 

Garrett: Do you think it’s, from your experience, is it an in-person sort of connection community? Or do you think that can be grown digitally as many of us work online? 

Lisa: Yes, it can definitely be done digitally as well. It’s particularly helpful when it is in person, but absolutely can be done online. And the really magical thing about this is it’s not necessarily getting something or even giving something. It is also the witnessing or everything that happens. So we like if you do online, we had during COVID, we did have Love Week during COVID and people would share on Slack and what they got. It might be like a little playlist or a note or an email that said something nice. It doesn’t need to cost loads of money. But the really important bit of it is that once you have people do nice things for each other across the agency or across the team, it really makes people feel accountable to each other. And therefore, they try harder to help each other. And when people help, the collaboration, the efficiency of what you do goes up. so things like this doesn’t need to be so complicated to increase performance by really um help helping each other because – very simple. 

Garrett: No, I love, I love it and I think you know going back to the psychology of like all the work that Robert Cialdini’s done if you read like influence and these ideas of like the reciprocity principles or you know tribal principles it’s like when you feel like part of a community, all of that sort of safety…it speaks to everything that you’re saying is like you can be the true and best version of yourself. I can’t wait. This is the first time we’re talking. I know you’ve known Mike for a long time. I can’t wait to talk to you in person. Can you tell me a teaser of what you are going to be sharing at your presentation to like really get people hyped up to come to SEO Week? 

Lisa: Yeah. So I’m going to be sharing a lot of neuroscience information, but in a way that everyone can understand. and I’ll be doing some exercises live to show people. And also I’ve got a lot of great examples for how this kind of work and this kind of leading has had a huge impact within the agency I run and show some examples. And I think especially now where digital PR is becoming even more integral, I think it would be great to share some of these examples to show people it is possible to get that coverage. You know, we had one piece of coverage for a poker client that got coverage on The Tonight Show, which seems like completely impossible, but it is possible. 

Garrett: Wow, that’s so cool. So, I mean, coming to New York, what are you most excited about for the event? 

Lisa: I am so excited about seeing people. And I’ve missed the SEO industry so much. And it goes back to that whole community thing. There is no industry like the SEO industry. It really isn’t. Like just the willingness to share and help each other and figure things out. Like it’s just electric, that kind of community feel in the SEO industry. And I’m really excited about coming back to New York as well. 

Garrett: I can’t wait because it’s interesting. Last year felt so much like this bridge of there, you know, obviously a lot of OG SEOs who have been in the industry for like 10, 15 years, 20 years. And then there are like a lot of folks with AI search. It’s caught so much excitement and there’s never been a better time to kind of start getting involved. And everyone was so kind. I think that was really, really a fun thing was making new friends, seeing people you’ve known forever. I cannot wait to see you there, see your presentation. People want to find you online like, what online communities are you participating in? 

Lisa: Yeah so uh I am on obviously LinkedIn, Instagram and and all of that. I’ve got podcasts called Being EKTE as well which means EKTE is Norwegian for being authentic and real. Uh, Mike likes to say being real. Mike was actually my my first guest on the podcast, and he was awesome.

Garrett: It was so good, I mean you guys speaking of authentic, it was like you got real you know kind of sharing very real vulnerable stories, you know, dropping all sorts of of of inappropriate comments that like i was laughing – it was it was so good. I gotta ask because it’s a little off topic but we got a little time is – how are you approaching being authentic online with all of the AI shift out there. Because it’s easy to see through. I think there are different philosophies on what can augment and help you. What’s your perspective? What do you think about it? 

Lisa: I think it’s totally fine to use AI to rewrite an article or make sure that it’s good. AI can be so helpful for bouncing ideas and checking out. Honestly, doing digital PR now would be so much easier because you can find the study or the information so quickly. But I do think that it’s important not to lose your own voice. And this is the thing with neuroscience and why I think I have invested quite heavily into podcasting is because when you see the real conversations, you know the difference. And the reason you know the difference is that that happens in your brain automatically. You are wired to figure out whether something is trustworthy or not. And when someone is being inauthentic, what happens is that it’s not that they are bad people, but when you are not being yourself, someone picks out that, oh, something doesn’t feel right here. And they might not like you because you’re not being yourself. And that’s such a shame. So I would say it’s really, really very important right now to be as authentic as you possibly can, even if you are scared that people won’t like you. Like Kurt Cobain said, “I’d rather be hated for who I am than to be loved for who I’m not.” 

Garrett: Oh man, you get my brain going, which is the sign of a good neuroscientists and SEO. Thank you so much for joining me. I can’t wait to see you at SEO Week. It’s going to be so much fun.

Lisa: Yay. Can’t wait.

Garrett: Yeah, if you haven’t got your ticket, April 27th to the 30th in New York City, join us, see you there. Garrett, sign off. Peace.