Latest / Small Biz Florida / Ep 416 | Smarter Leads, Stronger Sales: AI and Automation with Luke Kim

Transcript

Ep 416 | Smarter Leads, Stronger Sales: AI and Automation with Luke Kim · Small Biz Florida

0:00
Welcome to Small Biz Florida, your go-to podcast for all things small business in the Sunshine State.
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This podcast is sponsored by Florida First Capital, your trusted partner for financing and support.
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Here, you'll discover the latest news, trends, and invaluable resources to help you grow and succeed.
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From startup strategies to scaling your business, we've got you covered.
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Join us as we explore the vibrant Florida small business ecosystem
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and connect you with the experts who can make a real difference.
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And now, please welcome your host, Tom Kindred,
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Regional Director of the Small Business Development Center at Indian River State College.
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This is Small Biz Florida, the podcast and broadcast that's all things business across the state of Florida.
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And if you've been tuning in lately, you know Small Biz Florida is on the road again.
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We are attending, covering, working the 2026 Small Business Success Summit.
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All taking place here at the beautiful Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte Harbor.
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All brought to you by the Florida SBDC Network.
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Ballroom is full of small business owners, entrepreneurs, all here to network, share best practices,
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take part in trainings, workshops, breakouts, keynote speakers.
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Lobbies full of all kinds of exhibitors displaying their tools and resources for small business owners.
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So, not going to find a better place if you're a small business owner than this summit right here.
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We have one of our standout presenters with us right now.
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We've got Luke Kim, who is the owner-operator of Truth Cartel.
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He is also a faculty member at UC Berkeley, where he teaches entrepreneurship.
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Excited for this conversation.
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Welcome to Small Biz Florida, Luke.
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Thank you. It's my first time, and I'm blown away.
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Your first time on the podcast and you're blown away, or first time at the conference and you're blown away?
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Both, actually. Both.
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I like it. I like it.
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Luke, listen, I enjoyed our little warm-up before I hit the record button.
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I can't wait to talk about all the things you're doing.
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But, let's kind of start with a little bit of your background and your pathway to your faculty position and your creation of Truth Cartel, your marketing firm.
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Talk a little bit about how you got here today.
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Sounds good.
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Well, it's simple.
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I was born in Tokyo to Korean parents, and I was educated in English.
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So, I was already a cultural mutt.
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And once I moved to the U.S., I ended up in California at the age of 13.
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And the reason I speak like this is because I chose the California accent.
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I thought, at the time, I want to be in politics.
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And everybody says the news in the California accent, so I got to learn that one.
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Really, that was my logic.
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Now, turn off the clock a little bit, and I ended up not going into government.
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I ended up being in tech.
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And so, multiple times over, I CMO'd tech companies, heading marketing.
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And ultimately, it was not complex.
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It was simple.
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I just launched and grew stuff.
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And it turns out that in many spaces, there's marketers.
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But in tech, you have the best marketers.
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Because tech is demanding.
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Tech is about daily active users, month-on-month adoption.
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Tech needs to justify itself to venture capital investors.
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So, tech marketers, in my opinion, are the best.
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And the best marketers do not end up in law firms.
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So, I took the principles, systems, and automations of tech company marketing
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and brought it forth to all the markets in all the industries, including Korea and Japan,
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but mostly America, using Truth Cartel.
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Wow.
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I love that.
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Thank you.
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You are...
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I've never heard it put that way, but you're kind of right.
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I mean, there's a lot of pressure in a tech company.
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You're scaling quickly.
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You're growing.
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You go into business today, no customers.
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Tomorrow, you have 100,000 downloads.
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So, you're right.
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Marketing's got to kind of work at a faster pace.
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100%.
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In that kind of business.
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Yeah.
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Makes a lot of sense.
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So, you form Truth Cartel.
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So, talk a little bit about that firm and what it does.
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Totally.
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So, Truth Cartel, we help you launch and grow.
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So, if you consider yourself an executive, entrepreneur, or expert,
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then probably you're sought after and you have supply of something that the market demands.
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And if only you could reach more of the market, you could expand your market size, right?
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You could address more people, widen your margins, elevate your prices,
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add revenue lines.
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So, that's all that we help with at Truth Cartel.
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But think of us as people who deliver CMO results.
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Guaranteed.
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People usually get surprised about this, but we even guarantee PR placements.
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We guarantee social media growth.
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We guarantee a lot of things.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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Let's talk a little bit about your faculty role at UC Berkeley.
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You teach entrepreneurship.
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Talk a little bit about that engagement.
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What does that look like?
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Exactly.
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I'll go personal with you.
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Even though we're at a business conference, my dream, my end goal in life is to be a professor.
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And everything I...
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I was like, you are.
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I would love to teach more.
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And just my last day on earth, I want to teach and then pass away.
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That's my dream.
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But to get there, I realized you got to have a PhD and also some black belt level experiences
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in the field.
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So the reason I'm trying to reach business success is that I want to learn through my own scars
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and my own battles.
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But the reason that Truth Cartel started and also the reason I became a faculty member at UC Berkeley,
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it's because I wanted the experiences necessary.
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And before I taught at UC Berkeley, I set up the Berkeley Blockchain Accelerator.
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So, I mean, I have experience being an admin, let's say.
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But I was also trained at the same department.
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So when I was 18, I got mentors at the Center for Entrepreneurship at Berkeley.
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And through those experiences, I became the man I am.
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So got to give back, you know?
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I like it.
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So you are here at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit as a presenter.
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Let's talk a little bit about what you presented on.
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What was your topic?
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Well, let's see.
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My topic was lead generation and sales automation.
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It turns out many people pay lead generation agencies like $3,000 or more per month and get
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no results.
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Not only that, if you hire a general intern,
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or maybe a low-level provider to do outbound for you, especially automated,
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then mistakes can scale.
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So I've met here in this room today, entrepreneurs and executives who they've got their domains
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banned.
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Their outbound is not working, but they're not sure why.
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Their leads have been generated and it's over a thousand people per month, but it's not curated.
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It's not segmented.
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And so I see people hurting for just an understanding of the market.
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So my presentation was about how to get leads for your industry, your market, how to properly
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test, validate, and also sell.
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And then how to make sure that when you're doing this stuff, it's data-driven and also safe
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because you don't want to do stuff that's illegal or uncompliant.
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Okay.
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There is so much to unpack there, Luke.
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We're going to go one step at a time here.
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So let's talk about lead generation.
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The name is what it implies.
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It's a company who's engaged in some sort of sales.
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They're trying to get leads.
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I guess textbook, old school, you buy mailing list, something like that.
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What is today's AI-driven marketplace look like in terms of lead generation?
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Just keep me at that low level now, Luke.
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What does that look like?
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Yeah.
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So right now what we cannot automate is outbound sales or sorry, external sales.
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So cold calling, handshaking, meeting people, that's human behavior, but we can automate most
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anything in internal sales.
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So if you're talking to market research all the way to lead curation and segmentation, we
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can do that.
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So simply put-
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You say we can do that.
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We as a-
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Oh, as a human race.
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Right.
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We as a small business community can do that.
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Yes, sir.
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Yeah.
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Got it.
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We as a part of the human race with today's Cloud Cowork technology.
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So with lead generation, it's very simple.
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You got to know what tools to use, how to use them compliantly, and how to do things like
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research, searching, and scraping.
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Research is something that used to take a lot of time.
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So you would spend days researching your competitors, their partners, their customers, their case
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studies, and figure it out.
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But now using AI, you can just write a few prompts and have that AI deliver you within
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10 minutes.
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A dossier of all your competitors, their past case studies, their customers, how it went,
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their partners, their partners, referral programs, commission structures, right?
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A lot of this stuff is public.
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And they can even index through press releases.
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So even if a company has not named their customer, maybe there's a press release about the project
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where you can identify, ah, my competitor served this customer and it was very profitable.
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I mean, you can do that kind of work with AI very fast.
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And then obviously de-anonymize those companies, those accounts into individuals.
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But also these days there's more sophisticated stuff.
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Like if you have a landing page or a website, I don't know if you know this, but when people
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visit your website, usually there's a footprint.
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And so I can detect at six in the morning every day, what companies were looking at you.
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Like somebody from Microsoft, somebody from Apple, that kind of thing.
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And then I can use account-based marketing strategies to de-anonymize that traffic and think,
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what time zone were they in?
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What rank might they be?
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You know, why did they look at you?
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And then try to sell to people that are actually looking at you.
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But these are just some tactics, right?
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There's so many ways to lead gen.
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I mean, scraping is another one that oftentimes you got to make sure it's white hat, not black
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hat, because it can get illegal quickly.
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But there's tools like Phantom Buster, for example, that it's incredibly good at pulling leads
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from Facebook groups, Slack channels, LinkedIn groups, et cetera.
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So you can go to your competitors' well-performing lead magnet and pull people that have liked
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their lead magnet yesterday, which means they have high intent and you can send them a better
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promo today.
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So, so many things.
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Right.
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And this is the same technology, the same space where if I go Google a barbecue smoker, why
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all of a sudden I start getting barbecue smoker ads?
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I mean, same kind of concept.
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This is the technology behind that, correct?
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Yes, sir.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Targeting technology.
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Makes sense.
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All right.
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So let's talk.
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That's lead generation.
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You also talked about sales automation.
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Break that down for us.
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What is sales automation?
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Sales automation is artillery more than infantry.
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It means that the founder executive is usually a strong salesperson who can deliver, but you're
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just one person.
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So how could I expect so much of you?
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You got to sleep.
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And therefore there's a point where if your business is good, maybe you're at a revenue
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level of a one to 5 million ARR.
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You want to hire salespeople, but then it's so hard because these people, they will never
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care about you the way you care about yourself.
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And they just want commission.
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So they're mercenarial.
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And if they do that well, then your competitor will notice and your competitor will just post
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them because they're doing well.
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It's crazy.
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Yeah, that never happened to me.
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Yes.
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Oh, man.
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Yeah.
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And it's not a matter of loyalty.
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It's just market forces.
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I think the one defensible way for a business to grow and scale is if we can magnify founder
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led sales or executive led sales.
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And the only way to do that, in my opinion, is to automate because with automation, you can
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scale quickly.
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I think if you automate the outbound process, then you're just basically turning your founder
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or executive into a force multiplier.
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Effectively, they can fire not once.
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Every time they sell, they can fire a thousand times per day.
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Now, this all makes sense to me.
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I understand it.
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Let me ask you about the small business owners that were in your session.
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Do you think, I guess, we can't help everybody, I guess, but I'm sure there were the ones in
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the room that said, all right, I'm going to leverage this technology.
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I'm going to take a deep dive into this.
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I mean, you know, is that kind of what you see is some people just say, this is just too
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complicated.
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I can't handle this.
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Or it's not too complicated, you're telling me?
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It's just pretty simple stuff to do.
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Okay.
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Anybody can do it.
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100%.
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Even the smallest of small retailers could implement some of these strategies.
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Yes.
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And it's better.
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It's faster.
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It's cheaper than hiring a salesperson, training them, managing them, delegating.
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It's better.
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And I'm not just saying this.
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At UC Berkeley, when we taught this kind of material, we got actual solopreneurs to go from
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zero to profit north of 25% of the time.
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So that means a fourth of people that take the class, they get profit.
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When this material was taught with the Korean and Japanese governments, we got net promoter
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scores over 70 all the time.
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Sometimes perfect.
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Because it worked.
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So if anyone's listening and they're like, could I use this stuff?
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Could I really implement?
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Yes, you can.
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You know, I'm talking like really nerdy Korean founders in not Seoul, but somewhere else in
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Korea.
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They picked up these skills in one day when I taught them.
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Now, so these skills you're talking about and picking them up in one day, is that a client
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of yours that's coming in?
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Is that, how does, what does client engagement look like with, um, with Truth Cartel?
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How do I begin to engage and, and learn the secrets?
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A hundred percent.
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It's outcomes, training and consulting.
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So if, if you're an executive who just wants some things done, you just want results every
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month.
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We'll write results and bullet points and promise you that.
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And, um, if you don't get it, then you get a refund.
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That's how we grew.
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That's how we got trust.
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Um, that's how we win contracts off of bigger players.
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So that's one.
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Um, and of course, teaching very important.
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We've trained CMOs at some very big and well-known companies.
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Um, much of which I cannot disclose, but we've done it and, um, we can train entire departments,
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uh, while at the same time staffing them and systematizing them.
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So oftentimes CEO can, CEOs can hire the right people, but they don't know how to form them
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up in the right unit formation to start marching.
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We can do that.
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And then obviously the consulting bit is simple.
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It's a lot of people don't have the budget or the readiness for full marketing department
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services.
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Right.
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So we just jump in as a fractional CMOs so that they don't make a single mistake.
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That's very important.
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You don't leak budget.
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You don't pay for the wrong ads.
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You don't hire the wrong people.
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You don't manage the wrong way.
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So a lot of executives like having us as their sort of backbone.
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What would you say is your sweet spot?
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Is there a revenue sweet spot, an employee sweet spot?
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What's your sweet spot?
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Oh, honestly, our sweet spot is a profitable company that wants to grow.
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If your company is profitable and wants to grow, and obviously it can't be a profit of $1
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per month.
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Right.
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But if you know that you're profitable and you want to grow and you're prepared to spend on
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it, then that's us.
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And the other case, our bread and butter over the past, in the first about six years of
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the company was crypto startups, fintech startups, blockchain startups, AI startups, because we
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were based in San Francisco for a long time.
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And they would come to us without profit.
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They'd be like, we have amazing growth in users.
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The VCs gave us hundreds of millions, if not tens of millions.
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And now we've got to spend this budget quickly and smartly.
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So you're going to create the plan.
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You're going to create the budget.
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You're going to hire people.
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And we did.
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Wow.
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Okay.
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You know, I spent, I spent 20 years in a very, you know, textbook, good old sales business.
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I was in the equipment business and we sold, we sold farming equipment to primarily citrus
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growers.
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And we were always trying to figure out where are these people at?
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How do we get to them?
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How, you know, and again, this was before all the technology today, but I would think in even
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those older types of businesses, selling traditional types of products, it would be nice to understand
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how do I get to my, how do I get to my prospective customer?
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Where do I, how do I get to them?
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And that's what you can help them do.
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A hundred percent.
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And while I espouse automation, I think manual is still good.
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One of the best campaigns I ever ran was a cookie campaign.
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We would automate a few messages to you.
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Let's say you are the citrus grower and I am you.
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I would email you sometimes, maybe mail you, right?
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But in the middle of this campaign, there would be a cookie delivery and it would be delivered
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by a nationwide franchise that's well-respected and trusted.
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And you get a cookie that says, Hey, I've been contacting you and I know it's a little bit
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of cold outreach.
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Enjoy the cookies, you know, just, just wanted to say hello.
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Wow.
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After a cookie, you would not imagine the amount of thank yous, confirmations, inquiries after
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the cookie.
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Wow.
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So, and by the way, recently I even did something worse.
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So-called worse, uh, in the eyes of an automation guy.
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Um, I bought pastries and coffees and went to the office of one of the world's top PR firms.
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I'm talking, my firm's pretty good.
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I mean, we make good money.
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We're yeah.
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But you know, I respect these guys.
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These guys are international and I won't name them, but like you would know.
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And I was meeting with their number one guy and their number two guy.
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Um, but I brought pastries.
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I was real humble.
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And by the end of the meeting, they were like, yeah, let's apply to contracts together.
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Like they were like, if you want to be prime contractor, we'll even go in a subcontractor.
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And I'm over here.
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Like, I can't believe you would subcontract for me.
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You know, thank you so much.
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And what about speaking of contracts?
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I mean, is there any use for your technology in helping a, an organization that does government
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contracting?
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You know, kind of pursue contracts that match our profile.
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Absolutely.
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So, um, we actually have government contracts.
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The Korean government is a client of ours.
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And when their top VCs and startups want to market expand in North America, we help them.
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Um, so we take grant funding to do that.
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So that's one, um, my background, actually, I started my career working with mayors and procurement.
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So, um, it was at this foundation that would do innovation for cities.
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Um, so I love this stuff.
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And, uh, I would say personally, I've written multiple failed RFPs.
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Uh, even I submitted an RFP for like a mechanical hand to fix airplanes for the air force and the
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air force never replied.
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Um, but some RFPs I did win, um, including the first ever crypto asset project in America
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for a municipality.
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So we had that experience and we can do it.
18:07
Okay.
18:08
How does one find you, uh, Luke Kim or find truth cartel?
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Ah, yes.
18:16
So there's a bunch of Luke Kim's online, apparently a dentist and a,
18:19
and a B list actor.
18:20
I don't know.
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So Luke Kim, Berkeley always shows me.
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You can also search solopreneur, Luke Kim.
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And then my course at Berkeley shows up and truth cartel, simple truth cartel.com.
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And if you are trying to buy then truth cartel.com slash case studies.
18:34
Yes.
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Um, that kind of thing.
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And I mean, ultimately my passion is teaching and obviously helping people.
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So I love this conversation.
18:42
Thank you for hosting.
18:43
Thank you to the conference organizers.
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Um, and yeah, like, uh, ultimately I hope I become a professor.
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Again, I think you're already there.
18:50
Um, I, I have to ask you're obviously, uh, from California.
18:56
How did you connect to the Florida SBDC?
19:00
Yeah.
19:01
Um, I'll tell you real quick, uh, in California, I was in tech.
19:04
I got disillusioned.
19:05
And after some big exits, I decided I want to join the diplomatic service.
19:09
And I passed a lot of, a lot of their rounds of interviewing with flying colors.
19:13
And then the final round, uh, got dropped because it was not a personality fit, you know, fair
19:17
is fair.
19:17
And then I tried to join the Marine Corps.
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Yeah.
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Cause I wanted to serve.
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And then we found out I had a very rare allergy and they were like, nah, we're not going to
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fly you special lunch, lunchboxes to your, you know, battlefield.
19:28
Right.
19:28
So yeah, I tried to go the other direction, but if the shoe fits, wear it.
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I'm really good at marketing and sales.
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So I'm going to do this for, for Florida people.
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And I've chosen my state.
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I've been here six years, you know, California was a state.
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Exactly.
19:39
You are here now.
19:40
Yeah.
19:40
Yeah.
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California was a state I went to, but Florida is the one where my businesses are incorporated.
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Now I have property.
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Like this is where I'm at.
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Nice.
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Yeah.
19:47
Okay.
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So I love Florida.
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All right.
19:49
It is Luke Kim, uh, obviously very talented, uh, very knowledgeable.
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He is the founder and the owner operator of truth cartel, a, a marketing, uh, a public relations
20:02
firm.
20:03
He's also faculty at UC Berkeley where he teaches entrepreneurship.
20:06
And he is a presenter here at the 2026 small business success summit, where he, uh, presented
20:13
on lead generation and sales automation, uh, Luke, incredible conversation.
20:18
Uh, thank you for your time.
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And thank you for your support of, uh, the Florida SBDC.
20:23
No, we love SBDC.
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Thank you.
20:26
Appreciate it.
20:26
Uh, this is small biz Florida.
20:29
I am Tom Kindred, your host.
20:30
It is all about small business and helping, supporting, assisting, uh, small businesses.
20:36
Start, grow and succeed in the state of Florida.
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Uh, all taking place here at the sun seeker resort in Charlotte Harbor, all brought to you
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by the Florida SBDC network.
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Stay tuned.
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A whole lot more to come.
20:50
This is small biz Florida.
20:52
That's all for this episode of small biz Florida.
20:55
We hope you found valuable insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey.
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Don't forget to subscribe to small biz Florida on your favorite podcast platform to never
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miss an episode.
21:06
We're also active on Instagram.
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You can find us at small biz Florida.
21:10
So follow us for exclusive content and connect with fellow Florida, small business owners.
21:15
And for even more resources and support, visit our website at floridasbdc.org forward slash
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podcast.
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That's floridasbdc.org forward slash podcast until then keep innovating and keep growing.
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Thanks for listening.
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We'll see you next time.