In this Inventive Expert episode, Devin Miller sits down with Paige Arnof-Fenn to talk about a question many small business owners keep asking: is blogging still worth it?

The answer is yes, but not in the old “publish something because someone said SEO” way. Paige explains that blogging can still be a powerful tool for building trust, answering customer questions, and showing expertise, but only when it fits the business, the audience, and the founder’s ability to stay consistent.

For small business owners, that distinction matters. A blog can be a helpful resource. It can support sales conversations, improve search visibility, and give prospects a reason to believe you know what you are doing. But an abandoned blog can also make a business look inactive. Nobody wants a prospect to visit the website and wonder whether the company is still open or simply trapped in a very long brainstorming session.

Paige recommends starting with focus. Instead of trying to launch a blog, newsletter, YouTube channel, podcast, LinkedIn campaign, Instagram feed, and TikTok strategy all at once, businesses should identify where their audience already pays attention. For many B2B service businesses, LinkedIn may be the best starting point because it supports professional credibility, thought leadership, and useful conversations.

The episode also explores how founders can use guest posts, newsletters, podcasts, and interviews before committing to a full publishing schedule. This lets a business test topics, build authority, and find out what the audience actually values. It is a smarter path than starting a blog with heroic enthusiasm and then letting it sit untouched like a treadmill in January.

Paige and Devin also discuss practical content systems. An editorial calendar can help founders plan ahead around seasons, industry trends, customer questions, and recurring business themes. A running idea list can capture insights from sales calls, client conversations, objections, and common misunderstandings. Those real-world questions often make the best content because they come from actual buyers, not from a panic search for “things to post today.”

AI is another major topic in the conversation. Paige explains that AI can be useful for creating outlines, summarizing ideas, and repurposing content, but it should not replace strategy or judgment. AI can help founders move faster, but it still needs human review for accuracy, voice, compliance, originality, and brand risk. In other words, AI is a helpful assistant, not the person you leave alone with your entire reputation and a publish button.

The episode closes with an important warning about the myth that there is no such thing as bad PR. Paige pushes back on that idea. In today’s social media and AI-driven environment, going viral for the wrong reason can hurt a business. Negative attention can spread quickly, get clipped, summarized, shared, and attached to a brand long after the original moment has passed.

That makes brand trust more important than random reach. A strong marketing strategy is not about being everywhere. It is about being useful, consistent, professional, and memorable where it matters most.

This conversation is especially helpful for startup founders, consultants, professional service firms, and small business owners who want to build a smarter marketing presence without exhausting themselves across every platform. Paige brings practical experience, and Devin keeps the conversation focused on what business owners can actually use.

Listen to this episode for clear advice on blogging, LinkedIn, content calendars, AI, social media focus, and protecting brand trust while still showing up in the market.

To chat about this one-on-one, grab a free consult at strategymeeting.com

In this episode of Inventive Expert, Devin Miller sits down with Robert White for a practical, honest, and surprisingly funny conversation about why smart founders still lose companies they built—and what startup founders and small business owners can do to avoid joining that club.

Robert brings decades of experience founding and leading high-impact experiential education companies. His work has reached more than a million people, and his lessons come from both the wins and the painful moments that only business ownership can provide. In this conversation, he shares why founder confidence is powerful, but founder hubris can become expensive.

The episode opens with a key question: should founders promote their origin story? Robert explains that not every founder is a natural self-promoter. In fact, he describes himself as a serious introvert. Yet he also makes the case that people need to understand the human story behind a business. The trick is not to overshare. The trick is to share the parts of your story that connect to the purpose of the conversation, the customer’s need, and the company’s mission.

Devin and Robert also explore the difference between working in your business and working on your business. Working in the business is the daily doing: solving problems, handling people issues, serving customers, managing forms, making calls, and keeping the machine moving. Working on the business is the higher-level work: strategy, positioning, systems, culture, delegation, and long-term direction. The danger for many founders is that they become doing machines and forget to build the company that supports the doing.

Robert shares a powerful lesson from his own career. One of his companies grew to major revenue and profit, and he turned down a large acquisition offer. At the time, he believed he was protecting the people and the idea. Looking back, he sees that decision differently. He calls it hubris. The company still needed stronger operations, better leadership support, and a founder who recognized what he was good at—and what someone else could run better.

That honesty makes this episode especially useful. It is not a polished victory lap. It is a founder-to-founder conversation about what happens when success creates blind spots. Growth feels good, but growth can also hide weak systems, unclear roles, poor delegation, and leadership gaps. A founder can be brilliant and still become the bottleneck.

Devin adds an important counterpoint: founders should not delegate so much that they lose touch with the actual customer experience. Sometimes getting into the weeds reveals opportunities competitors miss. Devin shares an example from his own firm’s onboarding process and how Digital Devin helps explain client intake steps. That kind of founder involvement is not micromanagement when it creates better systems and a better client experience.

The episode lands on a balanced leadership lesson. Founders need to zoom in and zoom out. They need to know when to inspect the details and when to step back and think strategically. They need operators, systems, self-awareness, and space to reflect. They also need to keep learning, especially in thought-leadership businesses where old ideas can quietly become stale.

Listen to this episode if you are building a startup, leading a small business, scaling a service company, or trying to figure out how to grow without losing control of the thing you worked so hard to create. Robert White’s advice is direct, practical, and grounded in real experience. Devin Miller keeps the conversation focused on what founders can actually do next.

Smart founders can still lose companies. But with humility, structure, delegation, storytelling, and a disciplined habit of working on the business, you can build something stronger than founder adrenaline.

To chat about this one-on-one, grab a free consult at strategymeeting.com

Artificial intelligence has officially moved beyond the “interesting experiment” phase and entered the “adapt or become irrelevant” phase for businesses everywhere.

In this Inventive Expert episode, Kristie Jones joins Devin Miller for a deep discussion about one of the most important business shifts happening today: the difference between AI-native companies and AI-enabled companies — and why that distinction suddenly matters so much to investors, founders, executives, and growing businesses.

For years, startups chased growth at all costs. Venture capital firms rewarded scale, user acquisition, and aggressive expansion. Profitability was often treated like a “future problem.” But AI is changing those rules quickly.

Kristie explains that venture capital firms are now heavily prioritizing AI-native companies — businesses that were built from the ground up with artificial intelligence embedded into their core operations and products. These companies aren’t simply adding AI features later. They’re building entire workflows, customer experiences, and systems around AI from day one.

That shift is creating serious pressure on traditional SaaS companies and businesses that were founded before the AI explosion.

The conversation explores how many companies are now entering what Kristie calls “freeze mode.” Leaders understand AI matters, but they hesitate because they fear choosing the wrong platform, investing in tools that may become obsolete quickly, or implementing workflows that need constant iteration.

And honestly, that fear is understandable.

The AI landscape changes almost weekly. One month everyone swears by one platform, and the next month another tool suddenly dominates conversations in mastermind groups, webinars, and boardrooms.

But waiting may be the bigger risk.

Kristie argues that businesses cannot afford to stand still while competitors experiment and improve. Companies need to start somewhere — even if the process is imperfect.

That means:

• testing tools,
• creating workflows,
• automating repetitive tasks,
• and learning through iteration.

One of the most interesting parts of the episode focuses on how AI integration doesn’t only apply to technology companies.

Devin raises an important point many business owners still believe:“What if my business isn’t really built for AI?”

Kristie pushes back hard against that assumption.

Even service businesses like plumbers, electricians, contractors, and local repair companies can leverage AI effectively.

She shares a real-world example involving an electrician appointment reminder system. Instead of receiving a simple automated text, she interacted with what felt like a conversational AI agent capable of scheduling follow-ups and escalating issues to a live person when necessary.

That’s where the real opportunity may exist.

Not replacing all humans.

Not building fully robotic businesses.

But blending automation with human escalation.

Customers still value empathy, trust, and flexibility. Nobody wants to argue with a chatbot while dealing with a flooded basement or urgent business issue. But customers also appreciate efficiency, responsiveness, and fast communication.

The businesses winning with AI are increasingly those that combine:

• automation,
• operational efficiency,
• and strong human interaction

The conversation also dives deeply into hiring and leadership in the AI era.

Kristie explains that companies are asking the wrong questions during hiring interviews.

Instead of simply asking:“What AI tools do you know?”

Leaders should focus on:“How do you think critically while using AI?”

That distinction matters because AI still makes mistakes.

It hallucinates.It misinterprets instructions.It confidently gives incorrect information.

And importantly, AI doesn’t necessarily mean eliminating people.

In many cases, it means freeing people from repetitive work so they can focus on higher-value contributions.

To chat about this one-on-one, grab a free consult at strategymeeting.com