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Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The Australian Small Business Show.

We sat down this week to talk about something that's been frustrating Matt for months: marketing that used to work just doesn't anymore. The core concepts of sales and marketing haven't changed, but everything around them has sped up, and the touchpoints that used to build a relationship with a customer now have to happen faster and smarter than they did even a year ago.

The biggest shift we're seeing is where people go to find answers. It's no longer just Google, it's AI tools, and even when people are on Google, it's often Google's AI doing the summarising. That means the old SEO playbook of giving away just enough to get someone to click through doesn't work anymore. Your content has to actually answer the question, properly, or AI skips straight past it. Matt's been rebuilding his own website with this in mind, researching what's landing in those AI-generated answer boxes and making sure his content earns a spot there too.

But being found by AI is only half the job. Once someone does land on your website or your socials, they're still checking whether they like you, whether they trust you, whether you're their vibe. That hasn't changed, and if anything it matters more, because trust has taken a hit across the board now that so much content is AI-generated.

Kristy-Lee's approach has been to let AI analyse her own analytics and tell her what's resonating, without letting AI write the content itself, because the trust piece has to stay genuinely hers.

We also talked about where to actually spend your energy. Referrals, recommendations, testimonials and Google reviews matter more than ever. Your email list is one of the only things you truly own. And rather than trying to be everywhere, it might be smarter to pick two or three platforms and do them properly instead of spreading yourself across five.

We'd love to hear what you're noticing in your own marketing right now, what's working, what you've quietly stopped doing because it wasn't earning its keep anymore. Come find us on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok and tell us.

Key Takeaways:

• Why the fundamentals of sales and marketing haven't changed, but the speed and format of every touchpoint has
• Why website and blog content now needs to directly answer questions to be picked up by AI search tools, not just rank in Google
• Why trust matters more than ever, and why that's a reason to be cautious about outsourcing your content creation to AI
• Why analytics are worth paying closer attention to right now, and how AI can help you interpret them without writing your content for you
• Why referrals, testimonials, Google reviews and your email list deserve more of your attention than chasing every new platform
• Why focusing on two or three platforms you can do well may beat trying to maintain a presence everywhere

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