Most entrepreneurs chase the next marketing hack. But Patrick Dillon, founder and CEO of WISE Digital Partners, has spent two decades proving that real growth comes from mastering the fundamentals and pairing them with smart AI systems.
As a successful entrepreneur for two decades and the founder of more than ten companies, Patrick has personally consulted with more than 5,000 business owners on their marketing strategies. In his conversation with Brad Weimert on the Beyond A Million podcast, he shared how his agency is helping companies grow smarter by blending tried-and-true marketing principles with cutting-edge technology.
In this post, we’ll break down Patrick Dillon’s most powerful AI marketing strategies for business growth, from mastering your online presence to scaling your operations with AI, so you can apply the same playbook to your business.
Why Even the Best AI Marketing Strategies Start with Strong Foundations
One of Patrick’s most surprising insights starts with something almost too simple: directory listings. While most business owners overlook them, Patrick revealed that cleaning up and expanding a company’s online listings, making sure its name, address, phone number, and website are consistent across hundreds of platforms, can dramatically increase visibility and lead flow.
He’s referring to the countless online directories that quietly influence your business credibility: Google Business Profile, Yelp, Bing, Apple Maps, and niche industry listings. These platforms store your core business data, often called NAP (Name, Address, Phone number), and when that information is accurate and uniform across the web, it signals trust to both search engines and potential customers.
“There is an undervalued place that people put on directory listings,” Patrick said. “If you don’t have your directories in order, you will not get full credit for being in business.”
The impact can be huge. “They got, like, a $15 million mortgage deal out of it last week… that’s the only thing that we did,” he added.
In a world obsessed with automation and AI, Patrick’s story is a reminder that real growth often starts with the basics. Whether you’re a local service provider or an online brand, those directory listings are digital proof that your business is legitimate, and the algorithms know it.
How Patrick Dillon Built an AI Task Force to Drive Business Growth
When it comes to scaling intelligently, Patrick didn’t just adopt AI tools; he built a structure around them. “We put together an AI Task Force… to help drive the direction of how we’re going to use AI responsibly in the business.”
Instead of waiting for AI to trickle through departments, Patrick empowered his team to lead the charge. “We launched a company-wide AI contest,” he said. Every department was given budgets “to use and to test AI solutions.”
This led to massive operational leverage. They even brought AI into recruiting: “The AI agent schedules the first interview, conducts all of them simultaneously… and scores them on the likelihood of success.”
That’s how his company grew by about 50% without adding headcount. As Patrick put it, AI gave them “faster answers to clients, leaner ops, and scalable recruiting.” It’s not about replacing people. It’s about freeing them to do higher-value work.
Rebuilding SEO for the AI Era
Patrick’s third major tactic is all about optimizing your online presence for how AI and search engines now interpret content. “Each page maybe has to have 1000 to 1500 words. It has to have perfect metadata. It has to have structured data and schema markup,” he explained.
But it’s not just about what’s visible. “Large language models don’t really care about the design… They care about the words on the page.” That means you’re not just optimizing for Google anymore—you’re optimizing for ChatGPT, Gemini, and every other AI that’s reading your content.
His advice? Treat your website like a living, evolving entity. “You have to kind of look at it like a rebuild… if you’re not doing that every two or three years, you’re really doing yourself a disservice.”
By combining structured data, long-form depth, and consistent reviews, Patrick’s strategy makes sure businesses are seen and recommended by both search engines and AI.
The Future of AI Marketing Strategies and Sustainable Business Growth
Patrick Dillon’s success isn’t built on buzzwords. It’s built on clear, executable systems that combine AI innovation with business fundamentals.
From cleaning up directories that drive unexpected deals, to building AI task forces that multiply productivity, to optimizing content for both human readers and algorithms, Patrick is showing what AI marketing strategies for business growth actually look like in practice.
Because at the end of the day, the businesses that win aren’t the ones chasing the latest trend, they’re the ones who integrate it strategically.
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