.png?width=200&height=42&name=%C2%AE%20(200%20x%2042%20px).png){kind=small}
Big Questions With BFO:
Dale Bertrand, Fire&Spark
At Digital Summit Minneapolis, Dale Bertrand of Fire&Spark delivered a two-part session full of valuable SEO and AI insights to a VIP audience.
After 3 hours of mind-altering presentation and insight, we still had a few more questions for Dale... which he was kind enough to answer for us on camera!
Want more digital marketing insights in video form? Follow BFO on LinkedIn!
Stay up to date on digital marketing news - Join our monthly newsletter!
Video Transcription
Steve Krull:
I'm here with Dale Bertrand after he just gave 3 hours of insane, intense deep dive into GEO, and he's agreed to answer 3 questions for me about marketing. Dale, welcome.
Dale Bertrand:
Well, thank you for having me.
Steve Krull:
It's amazing, amazing to meet you finally, by the way. I think I've been stalking you forever and this phone didn't work anyway, so, 3 questions. First question, what is the coolest thing happening in marketing today?
Dale Bertrand:
The coolest thing definitely has to do with AI. There's a lot going on with AI, as everybody knows. I think marketers are trying to figure out how they should be using AI and how their customers are using AI and how the digital platforms that marketers use will be using AI. But that's a lot.
Steve Krull:
So much there. So, there's like two sides to it, right? There’s what we consume every day and what we're using to build, which I saw in your sessions, which is absolutely amazing and thinking about block and tackle means so much more now after sitting through your sessions, like thinking about passages and chunking and some of the vector work that was going on. So I can't get off-tangent. I'm known to go tangential on this stuff.
I could talk to you about this for hours, but I'm gonna go to the second question. The second question is, where are we gonna be in 5 years in marketing?
Dale Bertrand:
5 years is a long, long time. So, what I know about 5 years from now is that the fundamentals of marketing will be the same in terms of customer research and positioning and messaging, and making sure that you've got the right messages on the right channels wherever your customers are looking for information about your types of products. So that's what won't change.
What will change is everything about how we do those things. The tools that we use and the platforms will evolve, our methods, the algorithms we use will change. 5 years is so far out that I can't even say like, AI is gonna be running marketing like, man, that's gonna be in 2 years. So like, what's gonna happen in 5 years is out there. You know, I think one thing I could say about 5 years is that there will be new jobs that we can't conceive of. I'm not one of those optimacy persons who will say that these new AI driven marketing jobs are going to fully replace the jobs that they eliminate, but there will be new jobs in 5 years. I just don't know what they're gonna be. Everything's moving so quickly.
Steve Krull:
Yeah, yeah, I wish I had a crystal ball myself.
Dale Bertrand:
Yeah, yeah, I'd be rich.
Steve Krull:
I liken it to this idea: Remember when you were a kid and you had 4 TV stations or 5, and then all of a sudden you had cable and 400 stations and for the first time in 20 years. I think you alluded to this too, that we're optimizing for something that's not named Google.
Dale Bertrand:
Yeah, I just stayed at a hotel that told me they had 50,000 channels through Comcast, and I didn't believe it. And I was unable to verify it. 50,000 channels - that's crazy.
Steve Krull:
All right, question number 3. What is one question that you wish you'd be, you had been asked and you haven't been?
Dale Bertrand:
I wish folks were asking about how to AI-proof their careers. I think people are asking how to do what they do today with AI, and I know that everybody has anxiety, including me, around AI.
I mean, I'm a public speaker, but yeah, you can get an AI up there to do that too. So we all have anxiety around AI and the marketers in the room are asking me how they should be using AI, but they're not asking, like, what their career path should look like.And that's, that's what I've been thinking about a lot.
Steve Krull:
It's really interesting. Well, and I talk about it too, like thinking about entry level jobs, and I know we're going on to 4 questions here, but they say entry level jobs are the ones that are gonna get squeezed. So where is tomorrow's job market gonna be and how are they gonna learn what they need to do?
Dale Bertrand:
So if you're a marketer in the industry today, then you need to evolve your skill set. And basically lean on your expertise to use a new set of skills and a new set of markets, because you have discernment and taste that a new person wouldn't have.
But if you're new getting into the industry, I think the playbook really is different, where you need to be more entrepreneurial than I was at the beginning of my career, because it's gonna be hard to get hired into an entry level job where your employer is gonna train you.
Steve Krull:
Yeah, Rashad Takawanda. I saw him speak last week. I don't know if you're familiar. He's former CMO of Publicis. He talks about a shrinking job market and growing AI, and he says, you're in charge of your career, and you just said the same thing. You're in charge, be your own CEO, be your own entrepreneur, and own your career. Don't trust, and I hate to say this this way, but don't trust your company to do it because they might not, but you trust yourself.
Dale Bertrand:
That was the fallacy like all the way from the beginning because there are some companies that have fantastic, phenomenal, like training programs.And you want to get your foot in the door in those companies because they're gonna invest in you over the long term. Like, I totally get that. Those companies are few and far in between nowadays, especially with people staying in their job for like 2 or 3 years and then job hopping, right? So you need to be in charge of your career path. Just, just choose one and then be entrepreneurial. Like if it's something that you want to do, don't wait for a gatekeeper. Or like an employer to give you an internship or a job before you start learning. Like you need to start learning yesterday, so just do it, do it in an entrepreneurial fashion, and that's how you're gonna break into the industry. But those entry level jobs, I mean, I hate to say it, but so many of them are not gonna exist anymore.
Steve Krull:
Awesome. Dale, thank you so much for the time. Thank you for your presentation today. And now an extra bonus for our mutual friend Andy Crestodina. What do you want to say to Andy?
Dale Bertrand:
That I stole one of his prompts for one of my slides today.
Steve Krull:
I got a picture.
Dale Bertrand:
Oh, great, great.
Steve Krull:
You gave him credit.
Dale Bertrand:
Yeah, I gave him credit.
Steve Krull:
There's no apologies needed.
Dale Bertrand:
Yeah, but I told him it looked a lot better in my presentation.
Steve Krull:
It did. It did look better in your presentation. Andy, you got up your game, buddy. Thanks again.
Dale Bertrand:
All right.