🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast
What a Nonprofit Consultant Taught Me About Why Your Marketing Isn’t Working
Bruce Ashford of The Ashford Agency on the 2,000-year-old narrative framework that fixes marketing messages, the three levels of every customer problem, and AEO — Artificial Engine Optimization.
Most small businesses that are struggling to grow have already tried the obvious fixes. A new website. More social posts. An ad campaign. A rebrand.
When none of it works, the assumption is that the tactics need to improve. According to Bruce Ashford, founder of The Ashford Agency and certified Storybrand coach, that conclusion is almost always wrong. The problem isn’t effort, budget, or channel. The message itself was never clear to begin with.
Your Customer Is the Hero. Your Business Is Not.
“Far too many businesses — the business or the product is the hero. If you want an effective marketing message, you need to write one in which the customer is the hero.” — Bruce Ashford
“Mason McCumber on AI Agents, Agentic Workflows & Building Smarter Systems” — the AI consultant on the most important mindset shift in AI right now: stop driving, become the dispatcher — and why repeatability is scalability.
— Mason McCumber, buildwithmm.com | Listen: Mason McCumber on AI Agents →
The Three Levels of Every Customer Problem
The external problem is the visible, surface-level issue. Most businesses respond here and stop.
The internal problem is how that situation makes the customer feel. When you name that feeling in your copy, you’re speaking a language the customer actually recognizes.
The justice problem is what every customer deserves. That framing elevates the message from a service offering to a statement of values.
“First impressions are visual. Commitments to buy are message based. The words that we use to talk about ourselves are the differentiating factor between whether a person buys or doesn’t buy.” — Bruce Ashford
AEO: Artificial Engine Optimization
Bruce introduced the framework of Artificial Engine Optimization — making your business visible and citable to ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, and Perplexity. Three categories: make your website technically machine-readable, produce authoritative content consistently, and build social proof through reviews that specifically name your business and what you do. You’re not only trying to win over human visitors — you’re now trying to win over the machines that recommend businesses to those humans.
Connect with Bruce Ashford
- Website: theashfordagency.com
- LinkedIn: Bruce Ashford
The Unscripted Small Business Podcast features candid conversations with founders and operators. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.
🔗 Topic Hub
AI & Small Business: What Real Founders Are Actually Doing
9 founders and operators share unscripted takes on AI — the dispatcher framework, the soul problem, why human content still wins, and more.