The ROI Online Podcast

Steve Brown
  • 5.0 (15)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

Steve Brown believes you, the entrepreneur, are the invisible hero of today’s economy. You fight hard to create value for your customers and provide jobs for over half of the American workforce. As an entrepreneur himself, Steve knows what you face today as you fight to grow your business. That’s why, on The ROI Online Podcast, he introduces you to forward-thinking business leaders you can enjoy meeting. As you listen to these fun conversations, you’ll realize you’re not alone. Many of your peers have faced similar business challenges and have come out on top. This is the place where you will meet other interesting heroes just like you and learn new perspectives and ideas that will help empower you as you journey towards success.

  1. 7h ago

    Why 99% of AI Tools Are "Pulling You Into The Rocks"

    Your inbox is a showroom now: AI agents, automation platforms, “one-click” marketing systems, and a dozen new tools that sound brilliant at first listen. We feel that pull too, and we’ve paid the price for it. When you chase every shiny solution, you don’t just waste money, you lose weeks of momentum, overload your team, and quietly drift away from the customers you actually want to win.  We anchor the conversation in a story that explains modern business chaos perfectly: Odysseus sailing past the sirens. The songs are beautiful, the promise is tempting, and the rocks are real. Our takeaway is simple and practical: tie yourself to the mast with a one clear campaign, so you can evaluate new AI tools without letting them steer your company. That “mast” is strategy you can repeat: a one clear line that states what you do, a one clear customer avatar you serve best, and a one clear offer that moves the needle fastest because it’s profitable, deliverable, and scalable.  From there, we talk tech the right way. If your message and customer are clear, tools like NotebookLM can help you deploy campaign assets quickly: landing page copy, targeted emails, sales scripts, onboarding steps, follow-up templates, social posts, and ads. But we keep coming back to a single filter question for every AI tool for small business: will it help us communicate our one clear line to our one clear customer better or faster? If the answer is no, we sail on.  If you want a marketing strategy that creates team alignment and real business growth instead of constant rebuilding, hit play. Then subscribe, share this with a business owner who feels overwhelmed by AI hype, and leave a review so more people can find the signal in the noise. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    15 min

  2. Jun 18

    Surf Your Fears: The AI Storytelling Formula Hidden in a Surf School

    I didn’t expect a surf break in El Salvador to turn into a masterclass on storytelling, leadership, and AI content creation, but that’s exactly what happened. After an AI conference, I head to the coast and stumble into a place where the owner is fully in his element: Alex Naboa, the founder behind a surf school and philosophy called Surfing Your Fears. Watching him teach made one question unavoidable for me as a businessperson: have I built my work around where I truly shine, or am I still forcing a model that drains me? We sit down for a candid, messy, very human conversation about his journey, from chasing waves and dodging the “normal” path to building a hotel, a community-first space, and a surf-therapy style approach that helps people face fear and process trauma. His line, “ocean mirrors your life,” becomes a practical framework for business and personal growth: waves as the external market, paddling as the daily operational grind, wipeouts as the setbacks that leave a mark, and the lineup as the real rules of community and respect. Then I show the exact way I use NotebookLM to turn that raw interview plus trusted sources into polished marketing assets. We talk about keeping the AI grounded in your approved Sources, and generating outputs like infographics, quote cards, slide-deck style story beats, deep dive briefs, and even a founder profile article you can publish. If you’re trying to do content repurposing, build a content engine, or communicate clearly in high-stakes moments, you’ll leave with a repeatable workflow and a stronger story sense. Subscribe to AI Made Simple, share this with a friend who’s sitting on great notes they never use, and leave a review with the #1 asset you want AI to generate next. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    25 min

  3. Jun 11

    Your Best Business Ideas Should Not Die On Zoom

    Your best business ideas are not in your slide deck. They are buried in your voice notes, your sales calls, and the quick explanations you give when someone asks, “Wait, how does that work?” When those moments are never captured, you become the single point of failure: the closer, the trainer, the explainer, the living wiki. We want to break that pattern. We walk through a simple, repeatable way to “export your brain” using Google NotebookLM. Starting with something you already have, a transcript from Zoom, a customer interview, an employee coaching call, or a recorded training, we show how to upload it and turn messy conversation into structured business assets. Think infographics that summarize a 45 minute back and forth, slide decks for powerful sales follow up, briefing documents that translate technical jargon, and even study guides, quizzes, and mind maps for onboarding and team training. We also dig into the curse of knowledge and why smart experts often lose rooms with acronyms and assumed context. NotebookLM helps you land the concept fast by grounding outputs in your own sources, not random web content, so your message stays accurate and true to your expertise. The goal is leverage: fewer repeated explanations, clearer marketing, better internal alignment, and a business that can run when you step away. Subscribe, share this with a founder who feels stretched thin, and leave a review with the one conversation you want to turn into an asset next. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    20 min

  4. Jun 4

    How I Use NotebookLM to Create Million-Dollar One-Liners

    If you can’t explain what you do in one clean line, you’re making your prospects do extra work and they won’t. We’re chasing a sharper way to communicate value fast: an 8 to 15 word one-liner that sounds like a real human, sticks in memory, and creates that instant “yeah, that’s me” feeling. We break down the one clear line framework and why it matters right now. Attention is fragmented, cognitive overload is normal, and you get about 10 seconds before someone’s mind wanders. On top of that, your messaging has to pass two filters: the human “bodyguard” brain that blocks confusing language, and the AI search and summary engines that ignore vague, generic positioning. Clarity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive advantage. Then we get practical with a NotebookLM workflow you can copy today. We show how to upload messy source material like customer reviews, sales notes, and call transcripts, use Audio Overview to surface the core value you deliver to your ideal customer profile, download the transcript, and feed it back in to generate sharper one-liners. You’ll hear why you should never accept raw AI output as-is, how to reshape the strongest lines into your natural voice, and where to deploy them across marketing, sales, your website, and social media. If you want a clearer elevator pitch, stronger brand messaging, and a repeatable AI-assisted process for finding the words that actually land, hit play. Subscribe, share it with someone who struggles to explain what they do, and leave a review with the one line you’re working on. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    19 min

  5. May 29

    The Five Minute Email That Ends Crickets

    Your best discovery call can still die in the follow-up, not because the prospect isn’t interested, but because you accidentally hand them homework. They have to recap the conversation, explain the problems, sell the solution to a manager or owner, and defend next steps with no clear artifacts. That’s where “we’ll get back to you” turns into silence, and it’s exactly what we tackle with a simple framework: Be Clear To Close.  We walk through a real travel agency scenario where customers message agents on personal phones via WhatsApp, creating scattered threads, repetitive questions, and zero visibility for leadership. From there, we map a clearer path: capture the discovery call transcript, use NotebookLM to produce a tight summary focused on what the manager actually cares about, and then generate a clean infographic that makes the future state obvious. The visual lays out an AI-assisted workflow inside a CRM, including automated lead qualification, AI-driven preliminary discovery questions, smart lead filtering, educational content delivery, and a smooth human handoff for pricing and specialized documentation.  We also get practical about how to send it: keep the email opening to one sentence, drop the infographic right under it, and add supporting details below for anyone who wants to go deeper. The goal is speed and clarity, delivered while the call is still fresh, so the prospect feels understood and equipped to get buy-in immediately. If you want a stronger sales follow-up process, better discovery call outcomes, and fewer “just checking in” emails, hit play, then subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more people stop chasing and start closing. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    16 min

  6. May 21

    AI Agents Decide Who Gets Found Before People Do

    AI agents aren’t just answering questions anymore. They’re actively shopping, comparing, and filtering options on our behalf, and they’re doing it before we ever see a list of links. We kick things off with a simple problem I had: I needed a new refrigerator, but the real constraint wasn’t features, it was size. By snapping a photo and handing the task to an AI tool, I got a fast, organized shortlist without measuring, clicking, or driving store to store. That same “agentic search” behavior is already reshaping how people discover businesses. If a billion AI agent searches are happening each month, your next customer may never read five pages of your site, their agent will. And if that agent can’t instantly tell what you do, who you help, and why you’re credible, you can get skipped before a human ever shows up. We talk through what agents look at first: your website, Google Business Profile, social proof, reviews, and whether your information feels current and trustworthy. We also share a practical way to prepare using NotebookLM, treating your business like a refrigerator that needs to be stocked with fresh, clear, specific ingredients. Dump in your messy notes, reviews, and core materials, then shape them into content that sounds like you, not generic AI slop. If you want to be the option agents recommend, start by making your offer easy to understand and impossible to confuse. Subscribe, share this with a business owner who needs it, and leave a review with the one place your “business fridge” needs cleaning first. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    16 min

  7. May 14

    Stop Writing Walls Of Text And Cave Paint Your Proposal

    Your next proposal might not be losing because your offer is weak, it might be losing because your message is hard to process. When a busy leader says, “Send me an email,” they are not asking for more words. They are asking for a fast decision tool that tells them whether you are worth a meeting. We break down a simple but powerful tactic: use an infographic as a modern “cave painting” to communicate value in seconds. One image can carry context, complexity, and a clear path forward without forcing your prospect to fight through paragraphs. Even more important, the right visual creates a feeling. When someone says “I feel like you get what we’re trying to do,” that emotion becomes instant rapport, safety, and momentum toward a call. Then we go beyond the first meeting. The real test is what happens after you hang up, when your contact has to explain the plan to their leadership team. We share how to use NotebookLM by feeding it your call transcript and email thread, prompting it to clearly outline the path forward, and generating slide style visuals that support a crisp follow up. You’ll hear a concrete example of a weekly live show workflow, roles across teams, and how a repurposing engine can turn transcripts into blogs, social posts, threads, newsletters, and short clips. If you want higher reply rates, cleaner follow ups, and fewer fumbled high stakes conversations, listen now. Subscribe, share this with a teammate who writes long emails, and leave a review with the one message you wish every prospect understood in one glance. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    15 min

  8. May 7

    Make It Make Sense

    Someone asks, “Can you explain this real quick?” and suddenly you are translating a messy, technical concept in real time. We built a repeatable way to make that moment easy. The trick is not dumping more information. It is sequencing the information so the brain accepts it, starting with visuals that follow a story and only later moving into details. We walk through our Tiptoe Framework for explaining complex topics: start with a single infographic that shows the whole idea at a glance, move into a slide deck that connects the dots step by step, then finish with a written leave-behind for anyone who wants the deep dive. Along the way, we show why “don’t start the meeting with the handout” is more than a slogan. It is a practical rule for leadership communication, training, and marketing because people remember pictures and narrative tension far better than paragraphs of jargon. To make it concrete, we use stablecoins as the demo topic and build the explainer inside NotebookLM. You will hear a plain-English breakdown of what stablecoins are, what “stable” really means, how reserve backing supports a one-to-one value with the US dollar, and why that matters for digital payments, cross-border transfers, and everyday spending. We also share a simple, high-leverage prompt that generates a graphic novel style explainer in steps, turning confusing “noise” into structured “music” your audience can follow. If you are a leader, founder, educator, or marketer who needs clearer explanations and faster content creation, this is a practical playbook you can reuse weekly. Subscribe, share this with someone who always gets the hard questions, and leave a review. What topic do you want us to tiptoe into next? Send us Fan Mail Support the show

    22 min
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Trailer

5
out of 5
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About

Steve Brown believes you, the entrepreneur, are the invisible hero of today’s economy. You fight hard to create value for your customers and provide jobs for over half of the American workforce. As an entrepreneur himself, Steve knows what you face today as you fight to grow your business. That’s why, on The ROI Online Podcast, he introduces you to forward-thinking business leaders you can enjoy meeting. As you listen to these fun conversations, you’ll realize you’re not alone. Many of your peers have faced similar business challenges and have come out on top. This is the place where you will meet other interesting heroes just like you and learn new perspectives and ideas that will help empower you as you journey towards success.

Information

  • Creator
    Steve Brown
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    152
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The ROI Online Podcast
  • Show Website
    The ROI Online Podcast