Kyle Scott talked his dad into a website for the family construction company, then bought SEO for Dummies at Barnes and Noble to learn how to make it work. Today he leads Northwing Digital, a Minnesota digital marketing company with 28 full time team members, he says.
Host Karissa Dunham sits down with Kyle Scott, founder and CEO of Northwing Digital, to talk about building a digital marketing company from a first website, a first hire and a belief in helping businesses succeed.
In this episode
- Buying SEO for Dummies and watching the phone start to ring
- Why new tools and AI make marketing more complex, not simpler
- The most common problem Kyle sees: a lack of prioritization from a return standpoint
- Building a business intelligence dashboard with Claude
- Trusting your intuition first, then confirming with outside advice
Chapters
- 0:00 Meet Kyle Scott of Northwing Digital
- 0:25 From his dad's construction company website to SEO for Dummies
- 1:59 The University of Minnesota, an agency job and starting Northwing
- 2:35 The first full time hire and growing to 28 team members
- 3:26 The biggest marketing mistake: a lack of prioritization
- 5:45 Cautious adoption of new technology
- 6:44 Search is spreading across more channels than page one of Google
- 8:34 Staying genuine instead of writing for the algorithm
- 10:18 Getting your house in order for AI and crawlers
- 11:42 What is new and exciting: prompt based web design and Claude Code
- 12:48 A business intelligence dashboard built with Claude
- 13:41 Big world events and why face to face still wins
- 15:28 Biggest wins: a pest control company and YMCA of the North
- 17:32 Give and take with vendors and learning to delegate
- 18:49 Disconnecting: hunting, hiking and the Boundary Waters
- 21:00 Canada deer hunting and getting engaged in Ireland
- 22:16 Playing golf in Ireland with his father
- 23:09 Mentors and bringing in an outside EOS implementer
- 25:37 Going from solo to delegating
- 27:22 Advice: trust your intuition first
- 29:42 Never give up if you are on the right path
- 32:28 What he would tell his younger self
- 33:23 Where to find Kyle Scott
Find Kyle Scott: northwingdigital.com
This episode is brought to you by Sun Control of Minnesota, Elite Tinting & Graphics and Bravo Protection Products.
