Hayley Henning didn’t wait. She learned. She acted. She built Characters.io from a broke college hustle to a scalable AI-powered brand. In this episode of The AI-Powered Marketing Show, host Keith Bell sits down with Hayley to unpack her journey—from Craigslist gigs and a DIY Cinderella costume to a full-blown, systemized entertainment business with national reach and zero fluff.

She tells the truth. Marketing in 2009 felt different. SEO meant directories. Tactics leaned black-hat. Money didn’t exist. So she bootstrapped. Her mom made her costume. She listed services. She waited for calls. Then, one day, the call came—and everything changed.

Keith asks the real questions. How did she validate the idea? What broke? What worked? What stayed? Hayley walks us through it. She didn’t just dress up. She built processes. She streamlined booking. She reduced errors. She gave performers structure. She used Make—not Zapier—to automate the chaos. With 100+ automation scenarios running her back office, Hayley explains why her AI agent now custom-quotes events, factors in travel, and triggers team chats.

We go deep. We explore the rise of answer engine optimization. We compare Claude and ChatGPT. We question Google Ads. We unpack tiered pricing ladders and how transparency, not pressure, helps customers upgrade.

For creators, solopreneurs, and marketers scaling real-world service businesses with limited time and money—this is a masterclass.

Listen in. Learn how systems save sanity. See what marketing looked like before filters. And discover why Hayley’s story is your blueprint—if you’re building with purpose, precision, and a bit of sparkle.

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for behind-the-scenes workflows, bonus episodes, and automation templates that save time without losing the human touch.

🔗 Start automating today with your free trial at Make.com
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In this episode of The AI-Powered Marketing Show, host Keith Bell sits down with David Fradin — veteran product leader, former Apple and HP executive, and founder of Spice Catalyst — to explore how artificial intelligence can act as a true product co-founder. David shares how his S.P.I.C.E. framework — Strategy, Process, Information, Customers, and Employees — remains a proven guide for product success, even in the AI era.

David explains why AI should be an aid, not the driver, in product development. He warns that quality depends on training data, stressing the importance of knowing your AI’s sources. He describes using tools like Perplexity to get transparent, verifiable information, and why AI still struggles with innovation, positioning, and identifying untapped markets — areas that require human insight.

The conversation covers how AI can speed market research, refine customer insights, and model target personas, while humans validate findings and set creative direction. David also reveals the most common friction points businesses face in the SPICE stages, the dangers of skipping customer validation, and stories from his career — from a $1.2M text-to-speech success to a product failure that ended a company.

You’ll learn how to brief AI like a co-founder, set guardrails for decision-making, and know when to trust AI’s guidance versus your own instincts. Whether you’re a solopreneur, marketer, or small business owner, this episode gives you actionable steps to make AI the most valuable partner in your product journey.

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I open a medical report. I see “Grade 5 lesion” and “Grade 4 lesion.” I freeze. My heart races. I don’t know if I should panic.

The report reads like another language. I type each term into Google. I find more fear. I lose sleep. I feel powerless.

My father fought prostate cancer. He’s been in remission for 12 years. I get checked every year. This year, my urologist orders an MRI. The MRI shows two serious lesions. The next step is a biopsy. I want clarity. I can’t get it from the report.

I paste the text into ChatGPT. I ask for plain English. I understand the results in minutes. I feel less afraid. I speak to my doctor with confidence. I think about others in the same situation—patients, caregivers, parents. They deserve the same clarity.

Two days later, I see an ad for Famous.AI. I sign up. The platform is simple. In less than three days, I build DecodeMD. The app lets people copy and paste their medical report text (without personal details) and get a clear, compassionate summary. It adjusts to reading level, tailors explanations for role, and uses analogies to explain complex terms.

DecodeMD exists to help you feel informed, not afraid. In this episode of The AI-Powered Marketing Show, I share the personal journey that sparked the idea, the challenges patients face when reading medical reports, and how I turned fear into a tool for empowerment.

My Cancer Scare Led Me to Build This App — Now You Can Use It Too → DecodeMD.co

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