Welcome to the Digital Velocity Podcast...a podcast covering the intersection between strategy, digital marketing, and emerging trends impacting each of us. Host Erik Martinez, Founder and Lead Strategist of Digital Velocity Agency, brings you a wealth of marketing experience along with his unique perspectives. Join him each week as he interviews industry veterans to dive into the best hard-hitting analysis of industry news and critical topics facing brand executives.
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June 8, 2026Episode 11132 min
Episode 111: Why 83% of Agency Leaders Know the Strategy and Still Can't Execute It | Agency Core 2026 with Brian Gerstner
579 agency leaders were asked what they need to do to succeed. The answers were clear. Then they were asked if they're doing it. 83% aren't. Brian Gerstner, president of White Label IQ and co-founder of Agency Core, sits down with host Erik Martinez to unpack what the Agency Core 2026 research found when it studied the gap between knowing and doing across small and mid-sized agencies. As Brian puts it: "there was very clear understanding of what needs to be done. And when we ask people, what are you doing? massive gap" The research identified three mindsets shaping the industry right now. One group is pulling ahead. The other two are either moving fast without a clear destination or stuck and overwhelmed. The difference between them is not what they know. Brian has a specific prescription for every agency still stuck in that gap, and it starts with something most agency leaders have been putting off.
May 26, 2026Episode 11032 min
Episode 110: Strip the Buzzwords: What Actually Drives Search Visibility in the AI Era with Cameron LiButti
The headlines say AI is changing everything about how businesses get found online. Cameron LiButti says those headlines are missing the point. Cameron is the founder of Bidview Marketing, a fourteen-person agency working with medical practices, law firms, and service businesses across the country. He spent four years as a mechanical engineer before finding his way into digital marketing, and that engineering background shapes how he approaches SEO: start with the data, build the structure, and be willing to tell clients what they don't want to hear. In this episode, Erik Martinez and Cameron work through what's actually happening inside search — and what isn't. AI Overviews aren't a new algorithm; they're a new interface sitting on top of machine learning that's been running since 2015. LLMs like ChatGPT aren't pulling from an independent database; they're scraping the web and Google's results. And the businesses that tried to game that system in 2024 are seeing the consequences now. The conversation covers: • Why Cameron's answer to the most important SEO question hasn't changed in eight years • How search intent determines whether AI is sending your prospects to you or past you • What a tax attorney and a medical practice reveal about where AI leads actually come from • The site structure fundamentals that apply equally to traditional crawlers and AI crawlers • Red flags to watch for when evaluating an SEO agency or consultant
May 11, 2026Episode 10926 min
Episode 109: AI Agents - You're Already Using Them. Pat Barry and Erik Martinez on Picking the One Worth Building Next.
There's no agreed definition of an AI agent yet. The people building them, the people selling them, and the people writing about them all mean different things by the term. There's also a real disagreement about how to start. The conventional wisdom is to pick a small task and let an agent take it off your plate. That's not wrong. But the small thing you pick should be doing real work for you, or building a real skill you'll need later. Otherwise you're using AI to look busy. Pat Barry and Erik Martinez sit down to work through both questions. Pat, a data scientist and AI consultant, opens with the version of the agent definition he's heard most often: a client who literally meant a robot. From there they get into what actually counts, what doesn't, and where most of us should start if we're being honest with ourselves. If you've ever asked yourself whether what you're already doing counts, or whether the next thing you build is worth building, this is the one to listen to. In this episode: · Why nobody in the AI world has settled on what an "agent" actually is · What counts as one (and why what you're already doing might already qualify) · The simple test for whether the agent you're about to build is worth building
April 27, 2026Episode 10838 min
Episode 108: "One Person With AI Could Do More Work Than a Whole Team" — Wes Lemos on the Three Levels of AI Most People Never Reach
Most of us are using AI to solve a problem once. We polish an email. We summarize a document. We move on. And we tell ourselves we are getting good at this. Wes Lemos has been at this longer than most. He runs Roll Digital, founded TIV AI and Vibe Scribe, and has built hundreds of projects across multiple servers. In Episode 108, he sits down with Erik Martinez to talk about why solving a problem once is the entry point, not the destination. "One person with AI could do more work than a whole team can." There is a shift Wes describes that most people have not made yet. It's about what you do after AI gives you the answer the first time. Wes has a framework for what that looks like, and most listeners have yet to move beyond the first level of it. In this conversation, Wes and host Erik Martinez get into what is actually possible right now, why the gap between awareness and capability is widening, and the one shift that takes you from getting value out of AI to building real assets with it.
April 13, 2026Episode 10737 min
Episode 107: Using AI as a Contrarian Thought Partner: How Ryan Shenefelt Stress-Tests Strategy Before Spending a Dollar
Ryan Shenefelt, digital marketing and AI innovation lead at deNovo Marketing, has been in this work for 13 years. Over that time he's watched what happens when agencies and marketing teams use AI the way most people use it: to confirm what they already think, to move faster, to check the box. In Episode 107 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Ryan shares a different approach. He uses AI to argue against himself. When he has a hunch about a decision, he tells the tool where he's leaning and then asks for every reason he's wrong. He separates the "why" and the "why not" into two distinct prompts so the AI fully commits to each side rather than hedging both at once. This episode covers: ● How to use AI as a contrarian thought partner when evaluating marketing strategy ● Why synthetic panels and persona-based focus groups can surface blind spots in a plan before money is spent ● The case for stopping new tool evaluation and mastering what you already have ● How Notebook LM reduces the risk of hallucinations by keeping AI grounded in your own data ● Using AI as a leadership coach to tailor communication across different personality types on your team ● What "vibe coding" made possible for someone with a limited development background "I will straight up tell it, I'm thinking this. Why not? Give me five reasons. Give me 10 reasons why not. And it's doing that gut check. It's telling me okay, you think this, what about this?" Ryan and Erik Martinez also discuss the practical reality of building AI capability inside an agency: why it takes longer than expected to start, how to identify the recurring tasks worth automating, and what it actually feels like to spend 10 hours on something that saves you 15 minutes, and why that's still worth doing. Ryan Shenefelt is the digital marketing and AI innovation lead at de Novo Marketing. He leads the agency's AI task force and works across account management, digital advertising, and strategy.
March 30, 2026Episode 10632 min
Episode 106: Your Digital Chief of Staff: How Joe Newberry Is Helping Leaders use AI to Reclaim Strategic Focus
What would happen if you had a version of yourself available every morning that already knew your values, your blind spots, and the two or three things that actually need your attention today? In Episode 106 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Erik Martinez sits down with Joe Newberry, founder of ExecClone.com, to explore how AI is changing the way high-functioning leaders work. Joe brings a background in tech, finance, and sales leadership to a practical question most business owners avoid asking out loud: how much of what I do every day actually requires me? Joe tracked his own time and behaviors down to the minute across a 30-day period and found he was only hitting his top three strategic priorities about 40% of the time. The remaining 60% was consumed by what he calls the urgent box, fires, repetitive input requests, and administrative tasks that did not require his level of experience. That data became the foundation for Exec Clone. The conversation covers the core concept of building an AI "clone" as a leadership tool, including how the True Mirror operating system onboards a user with over 150 personality and values-based questions to create a digital Chief of Staff anchored in who you are and who you are trying to become. Erik and Joe discuss the difference between an AI that knows your most recent conversations and one that holds your past, present, and 10-year goals in memory at once. They explore the concept of emotional drift. The episode also addresses data security and Joe walks through how ExecClone handles sensitive personal data differently than most cloud-based AI agents, including the option to run the system on encrypted hardware shipped directly to the client. For agency owners and business leaders who are doing the work alongside their teams, this episode offers a grounded look at what it means to use AI not just as a productivity tool but as a real accountability partner.
March 16, 2026Episode 10528 min
Episode 105: Building the Personalized Data Layer That Makes AI Work for Your Brand with Brian Gerstner
What does an agency actually sell when AI can produce the work? That's the question driving this conversation, and Brian Gerstner has a clear answer. In Episode 105 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, host Erik Martinez sits down with Brian Gerstner, President and Owner of White Label IQ, an agency that works exclusively with other agencies. With over 25 years in the marketing industry, Brian brings a uniquely front-row perspective on how AI is reshaping the agency model and what it actually takes to stay relevant when the tools that used to make agencies valuable are now widely accessible to everyone. The conversation centers on a fundamental shift: AI has raised the baseline for what "good" looks like across marketing, making ordinary, production-focused work insufficient. As Brian puts it, "AI's just going to beat the mediocrity out of all of us." The real competitive advantage, he argues, is no longer the ability to produce deliverables. It is the ability to orchestrate them through what he calls a Personalized Data Layer: a documented, structured knowledge base that captures brand positioning, ideal customer profiles, product details, proof points, and brand voice. Key themes covered in this episode include: • From tribal knowledge to documented scaffolding: Why relying on individuals to carry institutional knowledge is a structural risk, and how to replace it with a consistent, scalable system that survives personnel changes. • The MVP of a Personalized Data Layer: Brand positioning, ICPs with real personalities and pain points, detailed product and service descriptions, testimonials and case studies, and a defined brand voice including what words to use and what to avoid. • Why AI hasn't made work easier: "AI has not made anything easier. It's just made everything faster" — and that speed creates more volume, more threads to manage, and higher expectations across the board. • The risk of AI slop: Without a documented knowledge layer to constrain outputs, AI will always generate an answer, but it will be generic, inconsistent, and trust-eroding for audiences who can spot it. • Governance and accountability: How White Label IQ is implementing a matrix structure with pods and guilds, assigning document ownership, running 30-to-60-day verification cycles, and using EOS as a change management framework to hold leadership accountable. • The human layer as the new premium: "If anything, AI is the thing that's gonna make us human again" — as trust in digital content erodes, showing up in person and maintaining real relationships becomes the differentiator AI cannot replicate. While Brian's experience is rooted in the agency world, the implications extend to in-house marketing teams and brand leaders across industries, including direct-to-consumer businesses where audience trust, message consistency, and hyper-personalization are top priorities. As Erik notes, the average U.S. adult now receives over 8,000 messages per day, making the ability to reach and speak to a specific audience with precision not just valuable, but necessary. If you're a marketer, agency leader, or brand executive trying to figure out where to focus in an AI-saturated environment, this episode delivers a clear and practical answer: stop chasing tools and start documenting what makes your brand yours. As Brian says, "Without a backbone, you can't stand up." The strategic work of capturing your intellectual property, your positioning, your voice, your audience, is what will separate the agencies and brands that thrive in 2026 and beyond from those that get left behind producing generic output at scale.
March 2, 2026Episode 10426 min
Episode 104: Nobody Starts Confident — Pat Barry and Erik Martinez on Building Real AI Capability
In Episode 104 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Pat Barry joins Erik Martinez for a fast-moving, practical conversation about how to build "individual capability with AI" as the foundation for stronger teams. Rather than treating AI like a one-time experiment, Erik and Pat focus on how capability is built through repetition, discipline, and real workflow reps (repetitions). Pat shares how his learning process evolved from "watching videos on YouTube" and "Googling stuff" to using LLMs like Gemini or Chat GPT for guided learning: "I just tell it what I wanna learn, and then I tell it, ask me more questions so I can, kind of tailor this to myself." A major theme is the reality of time constraints for marketers, agency leaders, and DTC operators juggling "a bajillion things on your plate." Pat breaks down how he makes progress anyway: "I use time boxing," and "I'll block off just an hour on my calendar," then stick to it. Erik ties the mindset back to coaching, reminding listeners that "you gotta do more reps" to actually improve, whether it's "short hops" at work or getting better outputs from AI. Listeners will learn: · How to use LLMs for guided learning by having them "ask me more questions" · Why "going and doing" beats passive consumption when AI changes constantly · How "time boxing" creates space to practice without adding chaos to your week · Why confidence is built through iteration and verification — not perfect first prompts · How individual capability becomes the bedrock for scaling AI across a team If you're leading a DTC brand, running an agency, or managing a marketing team, Episode 104 is a must-listen for anyone who wants AI adoption to translate into real execution — not tool overload. As Pat puts it, "You're never gonna start unless you start doing."
February 16, 2026Episode 10336 min
Episode 103: How to Turn Automation into a Strategic Advantage with Kaitlyn Study
In Episode 103 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Erik Martinez sits down with Kaitlyn Study, entrepreneur and owner of South Street and Co., to explore what it really means to move from experimenting with AI to fully operationalizing it inside your business. Over the past year, Kaitlyn has automated "250 plus tasks across her business," transforming repetitive processes into structured, strategic systems. As Erik frames it, this conversation is about "automating and operationalizing AI in your business, not the nuts and bolts of which buttons to click, but why this matters strategically and how it becomes a real competitive advantage." Kaitlyn's journey began with a simple realization: "How can I clone myself without using math and science?" After experiencing team turnover and the strain of repetitive operational work, she turned to tools like Zapier, N8N, and AI platforms to eliminate friction and create clarity. The result wasn't just time savings, it was precision. As Kaitlyn explains, "If the automation doesn't work, I know that I did something wrong and didn't correctly portray what I was trying to get out of it." That level of accountability changed how her agency manages hiring, time tracking, sales follow-ups, and capacity planning. Listeners will gain practical, cross-industry insights, including: · Why "auditing your time" is the first step toward meaningful automation · How to identify "friction" points that signal automation opportunities · Why "you have to test it and test it and test it" when integrating AI into workflows · How freeing "brain space" allows leaders to focus on higher-level strategic thinking · Why the goal "is not to replace people" but to "have you do better, higher level work that you're really great at" For direct-to-consumer brands, agencies, and growth-focused executives, this episode offers a roadmap for scaling operations without sacrificing creativity or culture. Automation, when applied thoughtfully, becomes evolution, not revolution. As Kaitlyn emphasizes, "The goal is not to replace people. It's to have you do better, higher level work that you're really great at, and to have the nuanced, repetitive tasks taken care of." If you're serious about turning AI from a tool into a competitive advantage, this episode is a must-listen.
February 2, 2026Episode 10224 min
Episode 102: Buying Tools vs. Building Strategy: A Practical Guide to AI Adoption with Pat Barry & Erik Martinez
In Episode 102 of the Digital Velocity Podcast, Erik Martinez and Pat Barry have a candid conversation about one of the most common challenges businesses face with AI today: buying too many tools without a clear strategy. As AI capabilities explode, teams are overwhelmed by choices, and often mistake experimentation for progress. Pat and Erik dig into why many organizations start with the question, "what tools do we need to buy?" instead of first defining the business problems they're trying to solve. As Pat explains, "Most clients that come to me start with what tools do we need to buy? My reaction is, let's see what you already have, because you might be able to accomplish a lot with what you've already got." The discussion reframes AI adoption around workflows, outcomes, and discipline—rather than novelty. Listeners will learn: • Why unchecked experimentation often leads to tool sprawl and wasted budget • How to evaluate AI tools based on real business use cases and ROI • Why existing platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft often cover most needs • How to balance team-level experimentation with organizational governance • What questions leaders should ask before approving a new AI subscription Throughout the episode, Erik emphasizes the importance of starting with the workflow, noting, "You've got to work on the use case. Which means you also need to understand the workflows, where it's going to be used." Together, they explore how most teams can handle the majority of their needs with core LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude—and when specialized tools actually make sense. For marketers, operators, agency owners, and direct-to-consumer leaders, this episode offers a grounded framework for navigating the AI tool explosion without losing focus. The takeaway is clear: AI should make work more efficient and strategic—not more chaotic. Before buying the next shiny tool, make sure it ladders up to a real business goal.
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