Introduction

RICK: Pathmonk is the AI for website conversions. With increasing online competition, over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show your value proposition and support visitors in their buying journey separates you from the competition online. Pathmonk qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments with relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos, and much more.

Stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversions by 50% by adding Pathmonk to your website in seconds by letting the AI do all the work and increase conversions while you keep doing marketing as usual. Check us out on pathmonk.com. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pathmonk Presents. Today we’re joined by Aleksandar Dimitrov.

He’s the s- founder and CMO of Amused Agency. Aleksandar, welcome to the show.

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah. Thank you, Rick.

What Amused Agency does

RICK: Of course. Pleasure to be here. Glad to have you here, and, I’m excited to jump in, Aleksandar, or Alex, if you don’t mind. For sure … just wanna know a little bit about Amused. maybe we start with the basics, I m- in your own words, what’s the big idea behind your agency? And, typically we ask if you were explaining this to a friend over coffee, right? Casually, easily, let’s say, how would you describe what you do?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah. So what we do is pretty much we write on the internet, but in a way that also helps you find customers.

As simple as that. we love to package, information, teach people, help our clients teach, and get paid to teach. that’s in a sense like what we do at scale with client work, and we’re a small boutique studio out of, Bulgaria and Eastern Europe, but, we work with over 80 clients, across the internet all around the world, mostly, from the US and also Europe, local clients.

And what we do, it’s, pretty niche. So you’ve seen all kinds of, marketers online, but, we do like simple things that work. If you have any questions.

RICK: I lo- I love simple, first of all, and I love the fact that, you just mentioned, “Hey, we’re a small boutique studio. We’re over 80 clients,” right?

Which is, I think, an, an impressive number for a small boutique studio, but also the fact that you work with people all over, right? it’s, pretty awesome, and it shows like the, the power of, the internet these days that you can reach people all over the world, and if you provide a good service, then they keep coming, right?

Who Amused works with and how it evolved

RICK: But on that note, I’m also curious what kind of businesses that you work with? what… Are there any specific industries maybe where you feel your services are fit for? And is there a key problem? And this is a two-part, right? Is there a key problem that you help these, these people solve?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah.

First, I’ll take you a little bit back as an evolution of how we started, and I’ll tell you what we do now because, eventually today we’re selling like more of like information and work with, if you think about influencers, thought leaders on LinkedIn, like people who have like decades of expertise, they have already successfully exited a business or, they’ve been in corporate world for decades and now they want to do consulting on their own and build their personal brand and also, find clients.

We help them along their journey. But in the beginning, we started as, I have a friend saying “If there’s no fish, everything i- is like-” Looking as a meal. But, that includes e-com clients. First of our clients were mostly in the e-com space. But eventually that was, like, a little bit boring for me and, we decided to shift and, just embrace people who read the same books.

Listen to the same podcasts and share the same ideas with us, which is, growing, learning along the way, writing and there’s a lot of, interconnected, topics that we can touch on later. But we believe in that, AMUSE stands for Be the Muse Your Clients Seek To Find.

It’s a little bit of a spin-off of, if you, heard about the, the Gandhi version, be the change you want to see in the world. So i- it’s like we’re here to, serve clients who are also type of solopreneurs, but some of them also have, businesses, because they’ve done it for so many years.

RICK: Perfect. A- and, the way I understand it is that you, will help with thought leadership in a way that they also, articulate what they want to talk about, their product, their service, their offering. W- what have you, right?

And just make it clear. And I know simple is a key word because you’ve mentioned it a couple times already, right?

So I guess make it simple. is that pretty much the gist of it?

What never changes: customer psychology

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah. Everyone struggles with the same problems if you think about it from a marketing perspective. who are the people that I talk to? What is the problem that I solve? what is the positioning they’re offering? Everything changes from, a year with, GPT 3.5 to a year with, GPT 5.0 and things like that.

But tools change, the, the market change, but what doesn’t change is how, customer psychology works and how people buy. So we lean on those things. We adapt along the way. We help, clients package their offers differently, host, like, webinars and trainings, have, long and short-form content.

How clients find Amused and the website’s role

RICK: Okay. Fair enough. so as you said, human psychology remains the same in a way, right? So I’m curious how these people, these clients of yours, how do they discover you? And are there any channels at the moment that have become your go-to for bringing in more of them? I suppose here, going out on a limb and an assumption here, LinkedIn might be a big channel for you and social media in general.

but in all of that- And we can, we can attack this by compartments, let’s say. In all of that, what- how does your website play a role in all of this, in attracting new business?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Honestly, I wish my website played a, a big role. I’m not like a traditional PPC guy who, spends a lot of time on Google Analytics and, Google Search and ranks keywords to pop in Search so that, people discover me this way.

That’s why website is not, the primary place I invest my time on, you know, building a internet and online presence. But we do, mostly myself, I spend a good part of my day on LinkedIn, and emails, local events. but it- it’s pretty much like networking calls. A lot of those, I’m here, recording a podcast, and also have planned to do a podcast, for the agency as well.

we recorded a number of episodes that none of them are live, but, maybe one day.

What makes a website convert

RICK: Of course. Of course. So LinkedIn, as you said, yeah, it l- it sounds like that would be one of the best channels, right? Yeah … so let’s touch on the website for a second, because you said, I wish it was a, I’m paraphrasing here, but you said, it’s, it was a little bit better and whatnot. From your experience, what actually makes a website convert? if you were to make changes to yours or from what you’ve seen across the, the web, are there any tools or tactics that you think work or maybe even a framework, if you will, that has worked wonders in your experience?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah. So website by itself, it’s, you can think of it as simple as like a business card on the internet, right? But, it could be way more than that, not to oversimplify. But what I think a lot of people get wrong is, building a website, but they’re thinking about themselves in the process of building their website and not, like, how people, land on the website and where they’re coming from.

I have a, a good friend of mine, he’s like an theater, like a actor, like a live performance, not like in movies, and he’s always saying that, a character in a play, they need to know where you’re coming from. It’s the same as, m- maybe, for the digital marketing world and business online, you need to have, a different type of w- website catered to cold traffic, say people are coming from, advertisement somewhere else or from organic content.

It will be a different structure, it will be a different website. and the things that will work and convert will be different in terms of if you have people from SEO, and if you have been ranking very well and you have, blogs that lead to the website after a search, that’s pretty good, But, it’s way different structure. And- I can speak to different of those segments if you wanna, go those rabbit holes. but what I would say across the board really works well is that if you have, something that captures people attention, so it doesn’t matter where they come from, you have, some sort of, a video, or some, a freebie that looks like a lead magnet, then they can opt in if they want to, talk with you.

They can… nobody books a call before they know who you are, right? So there need to be, like, a bridge before that. And, this teaser offer that is free for everyone.

RICK: that’s a good one, and I like it. And I- personally, as a consumer, I found myself, say, booking calls whenever I felt like I could already, as you said, I could already trust the person.

And so when we got on the call, I felt like, “Hey, I, how… I know how you speak already,” or, “I know at least the way you think. I can see, we might be able to work together.” ’cause otherwise it’s just, w- why would I give you my time? what’s the incentive, right?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah.

RICK: What do I get from it?

So-

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: People buy from people, and, that’s the main premise. Online it does… It’s no different, it’s just that the experience is a little bit altered, and there’s, different steps to get to know someone online.

RICK: Absolutely.

A day in the life of a founder

RICK: speaking of people, let’s switch gears for a second here, Alex. Maybe we talk about you as a leader, as a, founder.

What’s a day in the life like for you? I’m sure there’s a, lot of, things that you’re juggling, right? but if you were to pick, say, three things that you focus on as soon as you sit down at your desk at the, at the start of the day, what would you say they are?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Look, dude, I’ll also give you, an archetype.

I’m most likely, a hunter. we mostly eat what we kill, but in a sense that, we’re very personalized and, I like to work with people who I’ll, I’d like to, call my friends eventually. And, I’m following with a lot of people. I’m investing to build relationships. This is the majority part of my day.

And say this is the good half of it, and then the second half is, writing, getting better as, building my own skills as a writer, as a marketer, and also delivering and working with clients.

RICK: I like that, and especially the honing the skills part ’cause you… So many people, speak personally here.

you get into, I don’t wanna call it a rut necessarily, but you get into a flow, into the routine, of doing the things that you’re supposed to do. but maybe that doesn’t include necessarily working on your skills, right? Just perfecting your skills and getting better. Now, you have a, a…

such a unique position in a way where, your skill is directly connected to the outcome for your clients. So writing, right? So writing is… it’s a great one ’cause you can practice daily in, inside work, outside of work, and things like that. But it’s, pretty cool to just see how you think about it in a sense that, “Hey, I just gotta get better, so I, put my head down and I write.”

Or, I read headlines,” or, “I practice specific tone,” or whatever the case, right? that’s, that’s pretty cool.

Learning from the classics

RICK: Now, there’s a flood of content out there, Alex, and I’m curious: how do you stay focused and keep learning, with all that chaos that’s out there? Are there certain places or people, maybe routines that you turn to for inspiration or even staying ahead?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah. recently I’ve been, thinking about the old type of advertising, literature and the first marketing, books that, came out in the late… I- in the early 19, 00s, so last century. And also, I’m bullish on, Substack as a, medium. I think it’s, it’s really cool.

There’s a lot of people who have, a different angle, an unorthodox point of view of, if you wanna say building a business online, but specifically writers, and you can see how that changes. because you need to write and adapt your writing to how people read online, because you have to be mindful of, how people consume your writing as well.

It’s one thing to write on LinkedIn, it’s another to write for newsletters and things like that. Formats matter. But I’m learning from people who are ahead of me, I invested a lot of, more than, maybe even 30K at this point to, get better and learn from those who are ahead of me.

RICK: That’s, I like the focus on the old stuff, right? ‘Cause, you go back to the classics, you… Many people think, “Hey, I gotta get on the new trends, on, on whatever is newest.” But actually, if you look back, there’s, already a foundation that was set, and people built off of that. As opposed to focusing on new things, focus on the old stuff, and then you can build your own, flavor of or whatever you’re working on, right?

So that’s a pretty cool approach.

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Yeah. there’s no, black belt techniques that submit, black belts. There’s just, white belt techniques that are mastered to perfection that, that black belts.

RICK: Good, point. Good point.

Rapid fire

RICK: Speaking of black belts, right? This is a segment that we’re going into before we wrap things up.

It’s a rapid-fire segment. We, we need to move quickly, We need to roll with the punches. but it’s essentially what it is, it’s, it’s just a few questions to keep things light and engaging, Alex, so don’t worry about it. No need to be a black belt at anything for this. but I just wanted to check, are you ready for it?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: I am.

RICK: All right. Sweet. So when it comes to content, to stay on that, train, do you prefer reading, watching, or listening to things?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Listening and reading

RICK: Okay. So what’s the latest piece of content, and it could be an audiobook, a, a podcast or a book itself that you’ve read, and was there anything that really stuck with you in it?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: I read The Obvious Adams last, week, and it’s, one of those old books in advertising, as was mentioning earlier. So it’s a very thin book. I heard it as a recommendation from, Rory Sutherland, who’s the chairman in Ogilvy, and also like a very, wise guy. But this is like a, a book that it tells a story about this copywriter in, the Mad Men era.

I think it was even before that. It was, early advertising era in New York, back in the days. and the guy was just, willing to learn. He was just, very simple, to the point that he might even appear boring to comparison with other colleagues of him, but he didn’t miss the obvious things and, hence the, the nickname Obvious Adams.

Yeah. And there’s a very good gold nuggets in there that, doubling down on to what works, just making sure that you solve problem one, two, and three before you move to problem four, five, and six is a, it’s a great lesson.

RICK: that’s… Okay, that’s cool. definitely gonna note that down after the, episode.

But, if you had a magic wand, Alex, and you could fix one frustrating thing in your marketing life with tech, what would you pick?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: It’s a good question. a lot of the things with AI change, Maybe a agentic thing is, the, the future, and I would like to work on my own systems internally as a business, not just, operations, but, working on the business, and that’s, something that I’ll do.

It’s not, a specific thing. A lot of the workflows you already have, but yeah, just sometimes you want to be aware of what you don’t know, That’s, the, the biggest thing. You wanna be certain that you’re not missing something valuable. If there’s something that could be, like, a reminder of “Hey, check this thing,” because it’s, your best n- your best next move.

RICK: Okay. That’s an interesting one. what’s one task that you’d love to put on autopilot forever?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: admin definitely. those type of, accounting, finance, transactions and just like the usual things. If there’s like a fancy dashboard. there’s all, all tools for everything, but this is something that I always thinking about.

RICK: Okay. Okay. I’m sure there’s a slew of tools out, out there already that, and probably- … vendors that are gonna be in your inbox now they’re, they know you’re on LinkedIn so often, I’m sorry about that. with that, Alex, I, I wanna thank you for being on the show with us today.

The one thing to remember

RICK: As we wrap things up, I also wanna give you the last word. If someone forgets everything about the interview today, Alex, what is the one thing that they should remember about the work you guys are doing at Amuse?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: That’s a great question. The one thing that I wish, people remember is that, everyone, remembers how you made them feel and not, like, how wise you were. So people like to listen, deeply, to be listened deeply, but not very often that is the case. And, communication is, the easiest thing to be, misread.

sometimes you think you had, a, a conversation, but people just get caught up. So remind people that you exist, post more, create more. don’t be afraid to follow up. And, I would say, this is, my message.

RICK: Love that. To close with, with some wisdom, why not, right? So Alex, I wanna thank you again, and, if someone wants to check you guys out, see what you’re up to, what you’re doing, where can we send them?

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Amused.agency. Also, follow me on, LinkedIn. I’m on Substack, Amused Alex, and would love to, chat.

RICK: First of all, put your handle in the description, of, this episode in, the show notes. But as I said, it’s been a pleasure, Alex, and, really trying to understand, how you think and, the, focus on simplicity, right?

That, that was my takeaway personally. and keeping things simple, but trying to distill the complex in, simplicity is not that easy, right? So I guess, we need people like you and your team to, to work on that when it comes to marketing. In the meantime, Alex, I wish you a wonderful day, and I hope we, we get to do this again soon.

ALEKSANDAR DIMITROV: Thank you, Rick. See you soon.

RICK: All right. Bye, everyone.